West Virginia didn’t hold a spring game this year, but that hasn’t stopped the Mountaineers from announcing their annual award winners from the event.
First up were the Iron Mountaineer Award winners selected by Mike Joseph and the strength and conditioning staff due to their efforts in the weight room.
Those players were redshirt senior safety Dante Bonamico, junior safety Noah Guzman, redshirt sophomore offensive lineman James Gmiter and redshirt sophomore wide receiver Bryce Wheaton.
The winners are the best in the testing at the conclusion of winter conditioning, measuring the broad jump, vertical jump, bench, squat, power clean lift, 225 bench, 40-yard sprint, pro shuttle, three cone, 60-yard shuttle and the 10/20-yard sprint.
The winners are selected from three groups: FB/TE/LB/SP, QB/RB/WR/DB and OL/DL. The top performers in each category are selected by their teammates, earning the Iron Mountaineer Award.
“If you go back and look at who’s won this award going back to its origin it’s a telltale on who some of the best players are and the hardest workers,” head coach Neal Brown said.
Past winners include 2019 – Josh Chandler-Semedo, Reese Donahue, Alec Sinkfield, Colton McKivitz; 2018 – Gary Jennings Jr., Colton McKivitz, David Sills V, Dylan Tonkery; 2017 – David Long Jr., Jon Lewis and Elijah Wellman; 2016 – Darrien Howard, Tyler Orlosky, Daikiel Shorts Jr., Elijah Wellman; 2015 – Jared Barber, Karl Joseph, Tyler Orlosky.
“Those are earned awards,” Brown said.
The second award given to Osman Kamara, a redshirt senior from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is the winner of the 2020 Tommy Nickolich Memorial Award. It is assigned to a top walk-on in the program and Kamara was chosen by the coaching staff for his dedication.
While he has since been put on scholarship, the safety has all the assets Brown is looking for out of his players that walk-on in the program.
“He’s going to be a big-time success not only going to help us on the football field but in life and his professional career. He’s a really great ambassador for our football program,” he said.
Brown has been impressed with his maturity level as well as his leadership skills in setting an example for the other players in the West Virginia football program.
“We have special teams meetings and I look around and he’s sitting up at a desk, got a pencil in his hands and he’s taking notes,” he said.
The award has been given annually since 1991 and some of the recent winners include:
2014 Michael Calicchio, OL
2015 Justin Arndt, LB
2016 Jon Lewis, DL
2017 Nick Meadows, LS
2018 Evan Staley, K
2019 Jake Abbott, LB
----------
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @PatrickKotnik
•Like us on Facebook
