The S. Rae Hickok Professional Athlete of the Year award, known as the Hickok Belt, is a trophy that was awarded from 1950 to 1976 (27 years) to the top professional athlete of the year in the United States, and then re-established in 2012. It was created by Ray and Alan Hickok in honor of their father, , who had died unexpectedly in 1945 and had founded the of Rochester, New York, which made belts—hence the choice of a belt for the trophy.