The Tribune

By Purdue Athletics

WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana – Senior Devynne Charlton was named the Big Ten Track Athlete of the Year, the conference office announced yesterday. The award is voted on by the conference coaches.

Charlton won three Big Ten titles and was the NCAA runner-up in the 100-metre hurdles this outdoor season.

Charlton’s award is a repeat after also being named the Big Ten Track Athlete of the Year last year.

Last month, she repeated as Big Ten Track Athlete of the Championships. She is one of just two women in Big Ten history to win both Big Ten Athlete of the Year and Big Ten Athlete of the Championships awards for the outdoor season in back-to-back years. The only other woman to do so was Tonja Buford of Illinois in 1992 and 1993.

Charlton capped her career with a first team All-America honour after her second-place finish at the NCAA Championships with a time of 12.77 seconds in the pouring rain. She was the highest finisher on the track of any individual in the conference.

At the Big Ten Championships, Charlton defended three titles, as she won the 100-metre dash, 100-metre hurdles and was a member of the gold-medal 4x100-metre relay team. That performance earned her the Big Ten Track Athlete of the Championships. She led the conference with 24.5 points scored at the Big Ten meet.

This year, Charlton broke school records in the 100-metre dash and 100-metre hurdles. Her top time in the dash was 11.22 seconds, while her top hurdle time was 12.70 seconds. Both were regional qualifying times, though she only entered in the hurdles. At the regional, she finished with the second best time to qualify for the NCAA Championships.

The award is another for one of the most decorated athletes in Purdue athletics history. The 11-time event Big Ten champion, who also led the Boilermakers to an outdoor team title in 2017, wrapped up her career with nine All-American honours, including seven first team nods. She had a pair of runner-up finishes at NCAA Championships with one in the 60-metre hurdles, as well as this year’s 100-metre hurdles, and a third-place finish. She earned five first-team All-Big Ten honours and was once on the second team.

This is her third Big Ten Track Athlete of the Year honour, with two outdoors and one indoors. She has four career Big Ten Athlete of the Championship honours with two each indoors and outdoors. She also picked up the 2017 Great Lakes Track Athlete of the Year for the outdoor season and was named the Purdue Women’s Athlete of the Year by the school’s athletic department.

Charlton, a Bahamian, was tabbed the nation’s Collegiate Female Athlete of the Year and Collegiate Female Track Athlete of the Year by the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations in 2016. She also has five Golden Pete awards, voted by Purdue’s athletic department, for Female Athlete of the Year and Female Performance of the Year.

Charlton will leave Purdue with school records in the 60-metre dash, 60-metre hurdles, 100m dash, and 100m hurdles, second in the 4x100m relay, third in the indoor 200m dash and fifth in the outdoor 200m dash. She scored 29.25 career points at NCAA Championships and an incredible 146.25 points at Big Ten Championships.

Charlton was the first woman in school history to win the 60m dash Big Ten title, which she did in 2017. She became the first woman to win the conference title in the 60m hurdles in 2016 and then defended her title the following year. She was a member of Purdue’s first-ever Big Ten title in the 4x100m relay, which won in 2015.

The Boilermakers then won the next three, including two which she was a part of. Charlton won the 100m dash in 2015, the first Boilermaker to do so since 1982 – the first year the event was contested at a Big Ten Championships. She now has three conference titles in the event and is one of just four women in conference history to win three.

Charlton won the 100m hurdles conference title in 2017 before defending it this year, making her the first Boilermaker to defend that title since 1984 and 1985 when Alicia Bass did so. Charlton also won three Big Ten Athlete of the Week awards during her career, including one this outdoor season.