HICKORY, N.C. – After stellar outdoor seasons, Oluwatimi Williams and head coach Kieran Showler-Davis have been named the conference’s Freshman and Coach of the Year.
Thrower Oluwatimi Williams (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) has quickly made a name for himself in the South Atlantic Conference. The freshman dual-sport thrower has set school records in both discus and shotput this outdoor season, which led to a gold medal finish in discus and a silver medal in shotput at the SAC Outdoor Championships.
The results led to the SAC naming Williams as the Male Outdoor Field Freshman of the Year.
Williams set his shotput PR at the Lee University Invitational at 16.41m and ranks in the top ten internationally for U20 shotput throwers. His discus PR was set at the King University Invitational, finding a distance of 54.69m.
He joins Carson-Newman track athlete Rylan Jordan as those to earn the conference’s freshman of the year award, as Jordan won the SAC’s Indoor Male Track Freshman of the Year award during the indoor championships.
Head coach Kieran Showler-Davis earns Outdoor Male Coach of the Year honors after the men’s team’s third-place finish at the SAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
Showler-Davis is the seventh head track & field coach in Carson-Newman history. He is in his first year as head coach of the program and his sixth overall.
Showler-Davis has spent the last five years as an assistant at Carson-Newman, working his way up from a graduate assistant to the number two man with the program. He is a two-time USTFCCCAA Southeast Region Assistant Coach of the Year, most recently winning the award at the conclusion of the 2023 outdoor season.
Among his pupils, Showler-Davis counts three-time national champion Maka Charamba, 13-time All-American Devon Moore, and 60m national champion Andre Morrison this season. He is also responsible for the development of Carson-Newman’s first women’s sprint All-American Sade De Sousa, as well as men’s All-Americans Ashwin Jood, Sipo Boya and Sterling Melancon.
In fact the last track sprinter to earn All-America honors who wasn’t coached by Showler-Davis was the man himself in 2018.
As a student, Showler-Davis made his way to Mossy Creek from Florida State in 2015. The Winchester, England native blew everyone away in his senior season, earning All-American honors in the 60-meter during indoor nationals and the 100 meters at the NCAA Outdoor National Championship Meet. Showler-Davis was also an All-Conference selection in 2017 and was the SAC Champion in the 100-meter dash.
Carson-Newman Track and Field will participate in the Lenoir-Rhyne and Lee Last Chance Meets in Hickory, N.C., and Cleveland, Tenn., before sending qualified athletes to the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Pueblo, Colo.
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