Ithaca College will host its inaugural Excellent Performance in Ithaca College Sports (EPICS) awards May 5. Organized by the student-athlete advisory council (SAAC), the night will be a celebration to recognize the efforts of student-athletes, coaches and others in the athletic department.
For nearly three decades, ESPN’s Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards have been a nationally televised award show highlighting achievements of athletes at the professional and often Division I levels. More recently, colleges like Cornell University and Louisiana State University have begun hosting their own ESPYs to celebrate the accomplishments of those on campus.
The EPICS awards at IC will include recognition of a male and female rookie athlete of the year, coach of the year and others who play a supporting role within the athletic department, like trainers.
The event at IC is coming to life as a result of a suggestion made by Kaitlyn Wahila, head field hockey coach and SAAC adviser at the beginning of Spring 2026.
“I always thought it would be really cool,” Wahila said. “This year, I was like, ‘You know what? I’m just gonna ask our athletic director what he thinks and see what happens.’”
The suggestion was well-received by athletic director Aaron Bouyea, and SAAC formed an EPICS subcommittee of four people: three student-athletes and Wahila. The student-athletes are junior field hockey midfielder Brooke Snider, senior field hockey midfielder Brenna Schoenfeld and junior golfer Helena Winterberg.
Snider put her academic knowledge to practice as an advertising, public relations and marketing communications major, in her role as a planner, not wanting to let any part of the night be forgotten.
“I’m taking a heavy load on the event planning because of my major and professional experience,” Snider said. “I’m used to planning events from start to finish, so helping flesh out what the details of the event will look like, the purpose of it, what the awards will be, and the logistics that will go into planning the event.”
Schoenfeld curated the first message about the event to be sent to student-athletes. As a business analytics and sport management major, she has taken the lead in organization, drafting emails and preparing voting forms to increase participation for EPICS.
Winterberg said the difficulty in ensuring equality for votes and awards at the event was a large reason why she wanted to be a part of the committee.
“Sometimes [golf is] overlooked, and there’s a lot of sports here that are smaller,” Winterberg said. “You’re just underrepresented, and it gets overlooked.”
According to Snider, for reasons like this, there were two rounds of voting: one for nominees and another for the final ballot. Roster sizes vary greatly across each of the 28 varsity sports at IC, so the committee made sure to implement a process that represented team opinions rather than individual athletes themselves.
“SAAC representatives were responsible for nominating their own teammates for several awards,” Snider said. “Once all teams sent their nominations, round two was voting for the winner. Each team got one vote per category, and could not vote for their own team.”
Winterberg said that the process may be subject to change in the future based on student-athlete responses, but it was the fairest of the brainstormed ideas.
“To us, this was the best way that everyone has a voice, you’re doing it with your team, but it’s not outnumbered where, football has like all those people have individual votes, and then golf with four of us, we only have our four votes,” Winterberg said.
According to the SAAC Instagram page, part of the motivation for hosting EPICS is to honor “what it truly means to be a Bomber.” Schoenfeld said this refers to the sense of community.
“It’s mostly community and just the ability to grow and meet new people and have the community behind everything,” Schoenfeld said. “I like the idea that we’re all in and we’re going to be committed to athletics, academics and just as a whole.”
Snider said a shared sense of dedication among IC athletes, regardless of sport, is another concept the committee aims to highlight with the event. She said the attitude of the Bombers is what sets them apart and should be celebrated.
“I think we’re a DIII school with a DI attitude when it comes to commitment, strength and conditioning, overall success, building the programs, and also in your classes,” Snider said. “I think being a Bomber means you’re all in and everything you do.”
Though they organize Blue Crew Bashes and the IC Sports Leadership Academy, SAAC committee members felt the need for EPICS to bring student-athletes together for a longer period. Meant to support others in accomplishments that may otherwise go unnoticed, like community contributions, one long-term goal of hosting EPICS is to instill a greater culture of Bombers supporting one another.
“I think it’s really important that all of our student-athletes honestly show some love for one another,” Wahila said. “Because I think we all are so focused on our team goals and on our individual goals as student-athletes.”
With the event quickly approaching, the EPICS committee and SAAC as a whole are working to release all necessary information to the IC athletic community for the night to invoke excitement and become an annual success.
“The hope is to bring everybody together and celebrate our successes,” Wahlia said. “Whether it’s on field or off field, or in the weight room or in the community … it’s not just all about results, it’s hitting different areas in the ways that you guys give back to not only Ithaca College, but also the community, which is great.”
