Each year the Kennesaw State Department of Intercollegiate Athletics honors the top head coach of the 16 sponsored. The James `Spec" Landrum Award is given to the head coach who best demonstrates excellence on and off the field while instilling the principals and values of intercollegiate athletics and competition. The award, created in 1992, is named after Kennesaw State's first athletic director, "Spec" Landrum. Appointed athletic director by then-president Dr. Betty Siegel in 1981, Landrum initiated the first intercollegiate athletic programs at Kennesaw State.

Over the past 14 years, coaches from six different sports have earned the Coach of the Year award. This past year, women's soccer coach Rob King and softball coach Scott Whitlock shared the award after each led their teams to the Atlantic Sun Conference regular season championship.