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STILLWATER – Oklahoma State student-athletes from all sports were celebrated and honored as part of the 2023 Cowboy Choice Awards Friday at the McKnight Center.

Started in 2019, the Cowboy Choice Awards have become one of the most anticipated nights on the OSU Athletics calendar because in addition to the awards themselves, the evening is an opportunity for student-athletes to mingle with others from different sports and walk the orange carpet dressed with an eye toward fashion. Each student-athlete has the chance to showcase their individual style, and most do.

The 2023 edition was hosted by Baillie Burmaster, a former Cowgirl soccer standout who is now sports director at Atlanta News First.

Awards are presented based on performances from the 2022-23 academic year, so it came as no surprise that the evening was dominated by the cross country and track and field programs.

The biggest individual awards of the evening went to Cowboy Athlete of the Year Fouad Messaoudi following a 2022-23 campaign that saw him win a pair of NCAA individual titles and run as part of an Oklahoma State DMR team that set an unofficial world record and golfer Maddison Hinson-Tolchard, who was the Cowgirl Athlete of the Year after winning her second Big 12 individual championship and earning first team All-America recognition by the Women’s Golf Coaches Association.

The cross country teams swept team of the year honors after both won Big 12 team titles and placed in the top five at the NCAA Championships, with the men only missing out on winning the national championship by a tiebreak procedure. Dave Smith was honored as OSU’s coach of the year.