By Ryne Rickman, UT Martin Sports Information Director
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – The 2022-23 academic year marked the 75th anniversary of the Ohio Valley Conference, which began in 1948 and currently ranks as the eighth-oldest NCAA Division I conference.
As part of the celebration of the storied accomplishments of the league, a committee working in conjunction with current and former schools captured the “best-of-the-best” in each sport and celebrate the top athletes in league history with the 75th Anniversary Teams across all OVC sports. A similar listing was compiled during the 40th and 50th anniversaries of the league.
The Skyhawks accounted for four recipients on the OVC 75th Anniversary Team for the sport of rifle, including a trio of members in the UT Martin Athletics Hall of Fame.
Jaymi Collar (2003-07)
Collar was one of only two student-athletes in UT Martin history to chalk up All-OVC honors for four consecutive years (air rifle in 2004-06, smallbore in 2006-07) at the time of her graduation. She set the school record in individual smallbore score (578) at Kentucky on Nov. 4, 2006 and was a qualifier for the 2006 NCAA Championships, held in Colorado Springs, Colo. A Blairsville, Ga. native, she was named UT Martin’s Bettye Giles Female Student-Athlete of the Year in 2007 and was inducted into the UT Martin Hall of Fame in 2014.
Dacotah Faught (2013-16)
Faught was one of the most decorated student-athletes in Skyhawk rifle history, qualifying for the NCAA Championships in each of her first two seasons before redshirting her junior campaign to train for the 2016 Olympic Games. Shortly after claiming the 2014 OVC Freshman of the Year award, the Amenia, ND native won women’s air rifle title at the USA Shooting National Championships held in Fort Benning, Ga. A six-time All-OVC recipient, she was a second-team All-American as a sophomore and left the program holding the top three individual scores in both air rifle and smallbore.
Heather Tillson (2005-09)
Tillson joined Collar as the only student-athletes in UT Martin history to earn All-OVC accolades in all four seasons, winning air rifle honors four times to go along with a pair of smallbore awards. During her junior campaign, she was spotlighted as the OVC’s Most Valuable Player in air rifle – two years after she was one of just three individuals to be selected to participate in the 2006 NCAA Championships. Hailing from Galway, NY, the 2017 UT Martin Hall of Famer set the school scoring record in smallbore (578) and air rifle (592) in back-to-back days in September 2007.
Bob Beard (1982-2014, 2016-17)
Beard oversaw a Skyhawk rifle program that was consistently amongst the nation’s best, ranking in the Collegiate Rifle Coaches Association top-20 polls a remarkable 32 times in the span of 33 years. The Bardwell, Ky. native was voted OVC Coach of the Year four times (2000, 2007, 2011, 2014) during his illustrious career, presiding over five All-Americans, one national champion and an Olympian. His 2013-14 mixed squad accounted for a school-record 4,626 aggregate score at Murray State while both the Skyhawk mixed and women’s teams were nationally ranked in the same CRCA poll for the first time ever just a year earlier.
Below is a listing of the top rifle student-athletes and coaches in OVC history:
Benjie Belden, Murray State
Darrin Campbell, Tennessee Tech
Brian Carstensen, Jacksonville State
Jaymi Collar, UT Martin
Andrea Dardas, Jacksonville State
Michael Dickinson, Jacksonville State
Dacotah Faught, UT Martin
Sara Haas-Parra, Tennessee Tech
James Hall, Jacksonville State
Joseph Hall, Jacksonville State
Marra Hastings, Murray State
Ken Hicks, Murray State
Morgan Hicks, Murray State
Charity Jacobsen, Tennessee Tech
Matias Kiuru, Murray State
Sam Muegge, Jacksonville State
Brandon Muske, Jacksonville State
Alexa Potts, Morehead State
Ivan Roe, Murray State
Barbara Schlaepfer, Murray State
Heather Tillson, UT Martin
Bryce Ward, Morehead State
Coaches of Note
Bob Beard, UT Martin
Ron Frost, Jacksonville State
Elvis Green, Murray State
Alan Joseph, Morehead State
Alan Lollar, Murray State
Graphic courtesy of UT Martin Sports Information
