2022 Banneret Awards: Men’s Coach of the Year

The yearly tradition returns to the Black & Gold Banneret: the annual honors for UCF Knights Athletic performance and achievement known as The Black & Gold Banneret Awards — The Bannies.

This particular category focuses on the signal-callers in men’s sports that are tasked to train, develop, motivate, position, and prepare their athletes in their quest to charge on to victory.

Here’s how it works: We, the staff, put together our nominees for each award. You can listen to our nominations podcast episode here. Over the next couple of weeks, we will open fan voting for each award. Each staff member gets one vote, and the winner of the fan vote will get one vote. If there is a tie, the fan vote will be the tiebreaker. We will announce the winners in two weeks.

With all that in mind, on to the nominees for 2022’s Men’s Coach of the Year:

Bryce Wallor — Golf

Give coach Bryce Wallor his due as one of the most underrated among the staff at UCF. The man has an incredible list of accolades which was made even longer in 2022. In a dynamite year for the American Conference sending four teams to the NCAA Regional Golf, Wallor’s crew was among the AAC members participating as an 11th seed.

While they may not have achieved victory in New Haven in postseason play, the golf team did still have one of the best seasons in men’s athletics and coach Wallor’s leadership is a big part of that.

Scott Calabrese — Soccer

Photo: UCF Athletics

With the players who departed from UCF due to graduation, Scott Calabrese managed to still make this team a force. With Conference USA membership for Men’s Soccer on the horizon, the former US National Team Goalkeeper also had Knight Nation a goal away from extra time in the American tournament final against a Tulsa squad that went on to a sixth seed in the nation before entering the NCAA tournament.

Greg Lovelady — Baseball

Photo: UCF Athletics

UCF Baseball started strong when they hit the diamond, but then injuries crept in and left Greg Lovelady in a tough spot to manage the team that was slumping fast. While they did fall short of ultimate victory in postseason play, Lovelady’s leadership rallied this squad to have a fighting chance on “Semifinal Saturday” in what was a grueling season marred by injuries.

Gus Malzahn — Football

Photo: Derek Warden

UCF Football was cursed in with a gaggle of players on the IR throughout the season just like baseball. The one notable difference was first-year UCF head coach Gus Malzahn found himself sidelined with an injury as well. In a year dripping with struggle throughout the fall including the loss of the starting quarterback, running back and key defensive players, Malzahn still managed to gameplan a squad that not only was the first in the state to be bowl eligible in 2021 but also secured victory over the Florida Gators in what some fans have dubbed the Gus-parilla Bowl.