WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Big Ten Conference announced its annual Outstanding Sportsmanship Award winners on Thursday, selecting Jalen Elrod (women’s track & field) and Matt Ramos (wrestling) as Purdue’s representatives.
Elrod concluded her collegiate career with back-to-back All-American honors during the 2025 indoor and outdoor seasons. She finished eighth in the pentathlon at the NCAA Indoor Championships to earn first team honors and became the first All-American in the event in school history. She set a school record in the pentathlon with 4,233 points scored at the national meet. The performance came after she earned silver at the Big Ten Indoor Championships.
She followed her strong indoor season with a 16th-place finish in the heptathlon to earn second team honors at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. She took eighth in the event at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships and was also an NCAA East First Round qualifier in the long jump and 4x400m relay.
Off the track, Elrod was Purdue’s female nominee for the Big Ten Jackie Robinson Community & Impact Award and was a 2025 Academic All-Big Ten honoree. She spent her final two seasons at Purdue after starting her collegiate career at Prairie View A&M
Ramos, a recent Purdue graduate who now works full-time as an assistant coach for the Boilermakers, just completed one of the most decorated student-athlete careers in school history. He was the clear-cut wrestling team leader as the only senior in 2024-25, totaling a 31-3 (.912) record for the fourth-best single-season win percentage in Purdue history.
Ramos was the consensus top-ranked 125-pounder in the nation for 15 straight weeks and did not surrender a single takedown the entire regular season. He posted Purdue’s first undefeated regular season since 2003 and was a top-10 candidate for the Dan Hodge Trophy.
The Lockport, Illinois, native capped off his college tenure by becoming Purdue’s first two-time All-American in 19 years. He owns the third-best career winning percentage in program history (.816) and is tied for the fifth-most wins (115). A leader on and off the mat, Ramos is a four-time NWCA Scholar All-American, just the third Boilermaker to be a four-time honoree since the award’s creation in 1991.
One member of each varsity sports team on every campus was chosen by his or her institution as a Sportsmanship Award honoree, and two Outstanding Sportsmanship Award winners were then selected from each institution. All of the Sportsmanship Award winners have distinguished themselves through leadership and ethical behavior. In addition, these honorees must be in good academic standing and must have demonstrated good citizenship outside of the sports-competition setting. Below is a look at the 2025 nominees from Purdue:
Michael Vallone (Baseball)
Caleb Furst (Men’s Basketball)
Ella Collier (Women’s Basketball)
Nathan Walker (Men’s Cross Country)
Payne Turney (Women’s Cross Country)
Gus Hartwig (Football)
Nels Surtani (Men’s Golf)
Jasmine Kahler (Women’s Golf)
Abigail Roy (Soccer)
Kendall Klochack (Softball)
Luke Fortner (Men’s Swimming & Diving)
Reagan Mattice (Women’s Swimming & Diving)
Henrik Villanger (Men’s Tennis)
Ashlie Wilson (Women’s Tennis)
Logan Sandlin (Men’s Track & Field)
Jalen Elrod (Women’s Track & Field)
Sydney Yim (Volleyball)
Matt Ramos (Wrestling)