Big Ten Reveals Men’s Outdoor Track & Field Postseason Honors
Gophers’ Mantzouranis joins Oregon’s Birnbaum and Smith with awards
ROSEMONT, ILL. - The Big Ten Conference announced the 2026 Big Ten Men’s Outdoor Track and Field postseason individual award recipients on Wednesday, as selected by the conference’s head coaches. The NCAA championship meet was held last weekend at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.
Oregon’s Simeon Birnbaum and Ben Smith won Men’s Track Athlete of the Year and Freshman of the Year, respectively, while Minnesota’s Angelos Mantzouranis was tabbed as Field Athlete of the Year.
Birnbaum claimed the men’s 1500m title in front of a home crowd at Hayward with a time of 3:36.05. He was a whole second faster than runner-up Trent McFarland from Michigan. He helped Oregon finish to Big Ten team-best fifth place at NCAAs.
Mantzouranis becomes the second Gopher in a row to win the Big Ten Field Athlete of the Year award, following fellow thrower Kostas Zaltos. Mantzouranis also became the second straight Gopher to win the hammer throw title, doing so with a mark of 75.78m.
Smith becomes Oregon’s first Big Ten Outdoor Freshman of the Year, as he became the first Duck to win the NCAA shot put title since 1982. He had a winning mark of 20.04m and remained over the 20-meter mark in the entirety of the 2026 outdoor season.
Earlier this month,
the Big Ten announced the award recipients
for Track Athlete of the Championships, Field Athlete of the Championships and Coach of the Year, as well as the Big Ten Sportsmanship Award honorees.