The success keeps rolling in for former TCU Athletic Director Frank Windegger.
Windegger will receive the 46th James J. Corbett Memorial Award at the 2012 National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Conference on Wednesday at the Hilton-Anatole Hotel in Dallas. The NACDA past president will also receive an honorary degree from the Sports Management Institute, a sponsored educational institute by NACDA and universities from across the country, according to a press release.
The Corbett Award is presented annually to the collegiate administrator who "through the years has most typified Corbett's devotion to intercollegiate athletics and worked unceasingly for its betterment,” according to the release. The award is the highest honor one can achieve in collegiate athletics administration. Corbett, athletics director at Louisiana State University, was NACDA's first president in 1965.
"Receiving the James J. Corbett Award is an amazing honor and I am grateful to those who named me as a recipient," said Windegger in a press release. "This has been a surprising and appreciated culmination to a fulfilling career. I have been very fortunate to spend my life working in such a rewarding field. My years in NACDA are some of the best years of my life."
The NACDA is a professional and educational association for more than 6,500 college athletics administrators at more than 1,600 institutions throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico, according to the press release.
Windegger has a history of success and achievement. As a TCU student athlete in 1953, he was recruited by football coach Abe Martin and was a pitcher on the Horned Frogs baseball team. Upon graduation in 1957, Windegger spent two years in the Army and worked as a high school coach.
He then returned to TCU in 1962 to take over the baseball program leading the team to the 1963 Southwest Conference (SWC) title as the youngest coach ever at the age of 28. Before becoming the athletic director in 1975, Windegger coached baseball and worked as the ticket manager, athletics business manager and assistant athletics director.
Other honors Windegger received include various Halls of Fame, NACDA and the TCU Lettermen’s Association as well as the gallery in the SWC wing of the Texas Sports Hall named in his honor.