THE FLATS – Grover Hinsdale and Dr. Shaday Word-Daniels have been announced as Georgia Tech’s recipients of the 2024 ACC UNITE Award, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced Wednesday.
The ACC UNITE Award was created to honor individuals affiliated with the league who have made an impact in the areas of racial and social justice. An initiative of the ACC’s Committee for Racial and Social Justice (CORE – Champions of Racial Equity), the award was developed and approved by the ACC’s members institutions.
Hinsdale has left an indelible mark on Georgia Tech track and field as the program’s head coach for the past 32 years. He has not only coached champions on the track, but also countless men that have gone on to represent Tech with distinction in all walks of life as alumni. Hinsdale’s impact can be felt on and off the track.
The Yellow Jackets have posted seven top-10 indoor and outdoor NCAA Championship finishes during Hinsdale’s tenure. He was named Atlantic Coast Conference Indoor Coach of the Year in 2002 and 2008 and has coached three Olympic gold medalists, 13 NCAA champions and 87 all-Americans. Twenty-five members of the men’s team during Hinsdale’s tenure have gone to be to be inducted into the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame.
Among the group of talented athletes that struck gold is Derrick Adkins, who won Olympic gold in 1996, and was a two-time national champion and six-time all-American during his Tech career. A second Olympic medalist, Derek Mills won gold as part of the 4×400 relay team in Atlanta. He was a four-time national champion and an 11-time all-American for the Jackets. The third Olympic gold medalist under Hinsdale tutelage was Angelo Taylor, who won gold in the 400 intermediate hurdles at the 2000 Sydney Games, for which Hinsdale was honored as the USA TF Outstanding Coach Award.
A two-year women’s basketball letterwinner, Word-Daniels, donned the White and Gold for the Yellow Jackets during the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons. Word-Daniels took the floor in 35 career games and earned her first start of her collegiate career as a sophomore when the Yellow Jackets took on No. 4/8 Duke.
After her time on the court, she has spent most of the last decade working at Southern Company and Georgia Power, delivering resilient energy solutions that connect communities, businesses and future generations to opportunity. At Southern Company, she is a supplier inclusion consultant, supporting business units across The Southern Company footprint by fostering relationships and connections between business unit leaders and qualified diverse suppliers. She works closely with small and diverse suppliers in the classifications of minority, women and veteran-owned businesses on a daily basis by supporting and mentoring suppliers on how to conduct business with large corporations such as Georgia Power.
Additionally, Word-Daniels works closely with non-diverse prime suppliers to encourage tier 2 subcontracting to provide suppliers with growth and learning opportunities. Internally, Word-Daniel’s team is at the forefront of leading The Southern Company to Move-To-Equity goal of 30% (over $2 billion) in diverse spending by 2025. Word-Daniels also serves as the Philanthropy Director on the Board of Directors for Women’s Energy Network (WEN), an organization that educates, attracts, retains and develops professional women across the energy industry.
The ACC UNITE Award is presented annually to individuals who:
- Best exemplify ACC CORE’s mission to promote and encourage racial equity and social justice through education, partnerships, engagement and advocacy;
- Have helped create meaningful, lasting change by improving systems, organizational structures, policies, practices and attitudes;
- Have been a pioneer and/or helped pave the way for minorities either at the institution or in the community.
Each school selects two recipients for the annual ACC UNITE Award that best exemplify the criteria above.
C.O.R.E was created in June 2020 to support the ACC’s commitment to social justice and racial equity. Members of C.O.R.E. include conference office staff members and campus representatives from each of the league’s 15 institutions. C.O.R.E.’s mission is to promote and encourage inclusion, racial equity and social justice through education, partnerships, engagement and advocacy.
To view the full list of recipients in the ACC, please click here.
Full Steam Ahead
Full Steam Ahead is a $500 million fundraising initiative to achieve Georgia Tech athletics’ goal of competing for championships at the highest level in the next era of intercollegiate athletics. The initiative will fund transformative projects for Tech athletics, including renovations of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (the historic home of Georgia Tech football), the Zelnak Basketball Center (the practice and training facility for Tech basketball) and O’Keefe Gymnasium (the venerable home of Yellow Jackets volleyball), as well as additional projects and initiatives to further advance Georgia Tech athletics through program wide-operational support. All members of the Georgia Tech community are invited to visit atfund.org/FullSteamAhead for full details and renderings of the renovation projects, as well as to learn about opportunities to contribute online.
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