The Top 30 honorees for the 2017 NCAA Woman of the Year Award have been named by the Woman of the Year selection committee. Three swimmers have made the list including Georgia’s Chantal Van Landeghem, Kenyon’s Ellie Crawford and William Smith’s Caroline Conboy.
Van Landeghem graduated in May 2017 with First Honor Graduate status with an overall GPA of 4.0. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and became the first UGA student-athlete to win the Dean William Tate Award in recognition of a perfect GPA. Van Landeghem was Georgia’s female nominee for the 2017 SEC H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete of the Year and she was awarded an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. She was chosen as the SEC Co-Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year for swimming and diving and she was named to the 2017 Academic All-America Division I Women’s At-Large Team.
Crawford qualified for three NCAA Championship meets and collected four career All-America awards. She concluded her senior season by earning an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. She was a first-team Academic All-American as selected by members of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) and was voted Kenyon’s 2017 North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Scholar-Athlete.
Conboy graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, she was a two-time CSCAA Scholar All-American and a 2017 third team CoSIDA Academic All-American. Conboy was a three-time Liberty League All-Academic Team pick and a three-time UNYSCSA All-Academic selection.
Schools nominated a record 543 women for the award this year, which conferences then narrowed to 145 nominees to be considered by the committee.
The Top 30 honorees — including 10 from each of the three NCAA divisions — have demonstrated excellence in academics, athletics, community service and leadership. They represent 12 sports and a wide range of academic majors, including neuroscience, communication, biomedical engineering, sport management, political science and art.
“The Top 30 honorees are remarkable representatives of the thousands of women competing in college sports each year,” said Sarah Hebberd, chair of the Woman of the Year selection committee and director of compliance at Georgia. “They have seized every opportunity available to them on the field of play, in the classroom and in the community, and we are proud to recognize them for their outstanding achievements.”
In late September, the selection committee will announce three women from each division as the nine finalists. From the finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics will select the 2017 Woman of the Year, who will be named Oct. 22 at a ceremony in Indianapolis.
The above press release(s) courtesy of the NCAA, University of Georgia, Kenyon College and Hobart and William Smith College.