How exactly are track coaches nominated for the coach of the year awards? What im talking about are those East region, South region awards, etc. What's the criteria and how legit are those awards? I've never actually paid attention I noticed a few weeks ago a couple coaches posting on their social media that they were awarded.
An institution can nominate anyone they want for a coaching or athlete USTFCCCA Regional award. They can only nominate one per category. From there nominations are voted on. All USTFCCCA member coaches have a vote.
Whoever wins the vote wins the award, and goes up for the National Level award, which is again voted on by member coaches.
Most every NCAA coach is a member. I have no idea what percent actually participates in the vote.
Conference awards will have a similar process, most likely, but that is handled by the conference office.
Generally speaking Conference, Regional and National awards are a big deal; especially for DI schools. Many coaches qualify for bouses or have contract negotiating leverage for winning these awards.
The exception to this may be those schools/coaches in conferences they regularly dominate (Furman in SOCON XC or Iona in MAAC XC). Probably not a big deal for those schools coaches to win a conference level award they have won 10 times over.