Youngstown State freshman Chad Zallow has been selected as the 2016 Alfreeda Goff Men's Track and Field Athlete of the Year, the league announced Friday. It marks the first time that the award has been handed out prior to the conference meet which starts on Saturday in Youngstown.
This is the third conservative year for a male YSU track and field athlete received this honor. Zallow joins Austin McLean who won the award in 2015 and Bobby Grace who was chosen in 2014.
Zallow's first year with the program has been nothing short of spectacular as he broke and improved the YSU school record in the 60-meter hurdles five times.
Zallow's latest record-breaking time is 7.69 seconds that he ran at the Zips Invitational. With that time, Zallow currently holds the second-fastest time in the 60-meter hurdles in the nation.
As the season opened with the YSU Icebreaker in December, Zallow set a new school mark in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 7.89 seconds, blowing away the previous record mark of 8.13 seconds.
Zallow continued to improve his record as he ran a time of 7.88 seconds at the YSU College Invitational.
At the Penn State Invitational, Zallow clocked a time of 7.79 seconds to lower his school record.
During the SPIRE NCAA DI Invitational, Zallow improved his record with a time of 7.75 seconds and was ranked 10th in the nation at that time.
In the 60m dash he clocked in a best time of 6.83 seconds and 21.98 seconds in the 200m dash during the season.
He came to YSU as a highly-touted High School star following a tremendous career at nearby Warren JFK High School.
Zallow will look to win his first Horizon League titles this Saturday and Sunday at the conference championships.
The Horizon League Track Athlete of the Year Award was renamed to the Alfreeda Goff Athlete of the Year Award this offseason in honor of former Horizon League senior associate commissioner Alfreeda Goff. Goff, who worked at the Horizon League for 16 years, is one of the most recognized administrators in intercollegiate athletics. Before moving into athletic administration, Goff served as the track and field coach at the University of Pittsburgh. She currently sits on the advisory board for the Bowerman Award, the highest accolade given to the year's best student-athlete in American collegiate track and field.
