OMAHA, Neb. – No. 9 Texas Baseball’s Ivan Melendez has been named the 35th recipient of the 2022 Dick Howser Trophy presented by The Game Headwear, recognizing him as college baseball's player of the year in 2022.
 
Melendez leads the country with 32 home runs, 94 RBI, an .886 slugging percentage and 209 total bases. He became Texas Baseball’s home run king with 32 blasts this season, surpassing Kyle Russell’s 28 homers in 2007 for the program record. The 32 home runs are the most in the BBCOR era, surpassing Kris Bryant’s 31 homers in 2013.
 
The El Paso, Texas, product is fourth nationally with a .516 on-base percentage and 16th with a .396 batting average. In Big 12 Conference play Melendez batted .432 with 14 home runs and 32 RBI, slugging 1.000 with a .538 on-base percentage.
 
The 6-foot-3, 225-pound junior from Coronado High School, is the fourth Big 12 player since the formation of the Conference in 1996-97 to nab this national honor. He is the fourth Longhorn (five times) to earn the award since 1992.

Melendez won the honor over an All-America group of ’22 Howser Trophy finalists: Oregon State starting pitcher Connor Hjerpe, Tennessee 3B Trey Lipscomb, Georgia Tech catcher Kevin Parada and Clemson 3B Max Wagner.
 
A Florida native, Dick Howser was twice an All-America shortstop at Florida State (1957-58), then head coach of the Seminoles in 1979 after a career as a Major League player and coach. After one year in the college ranks, he returned to the majors to manage the New York Yankees and Kansas City Royals and won the World Series with the Royals in 1985. The baseball stadium on the Florida State campus is named for Howser.
 
The Dick Howser Trophy not only honors a player with some of the best ability nationally, but it also is based upon the tenets of - leadership, moral character and courage. The top draft choices for the upcoming Major League Baseball free agent draft usually are among the Howser Trophy finalists, but this is not a criterion for the eventual winner.

NCBWA membership includes writers, broadcasters and publicists. Designed to promote and publicize college baseball, it is the sport's only college media-related organization, founded in 1962. The NCBWA has been the voting mechanism for the Howser Trophy annually since 1998.