San Diego icon Tony Gwynn will receive another honor next year, when the Mountain West Conference will rechristen its Player of the Year Award in his honor.
San Diego State University plays in the conference. Gwynn coached the campus baseball team from 2002 until his June death from cancer.
The Mountain West also will ask its teams to display a “TG” memorial insignia on their uniforms during the 2015 season.
Gwynn made San Diego his amateur and professional home.
He played at San Diego State, but when it was a member of the Western Athletic Conference. While a San Diego state player, Gwynn was a two-time All-American, which led the Padres to select him in the third-round of the MLB draft in 1981. He spent his whole career in San Diego and was a 15-time All-Star who played in two World Series. He was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 2007.
He then returned to the university after his baseball-playing days were over.
The other Mountain West head baseball coaches sought to honor Gwynn at their annual meeting in August, and the conference council later ratified the action. Mark Martinez, an assistant to Gwynn, has taken over as San Diego State coach.