The Georgia Bulldogs continue to rack up awards outside-of-the-pool to go with their two-straight NCAA women’s team championships in the pool, as post-grad Shannon Vreeland has been named a recipient of the NCAA’s prestigious Top 10 Award.
As the name implies, every year at its convention, the NCAA honors 10 students who completed their athletics eligibility during the prior year (in this case, the 2013-2014 season). Recipients are decided based on a combination of athletics, academics, and community involvement.
Vreeland, an Economics and International Affairs major at Georgia, has a GPA of 3.85 and earned 19 All-American awards in the pool. See the full resume for her selection below:
Shannon Vreeland competed as a member of the Georgia swimming and diving team, where she was a member of two NCAA championship teams (2013 and 2014). A 19-time All-American, Vreeland swam on four NCAA-winning relays: the 800-yard freestyle relays in 2011, 2012 and 2013, and the 400-yard freestyle relay in 2013. She also earned two individual and five relay titles during her career at the Southeastern Conference Championships. Vreeland helped the 800-yard freestyle relay squad set the U.S. record, while the 400- and 800-yard freestyle relays eclipsed the U.S. Open and NCAA marks. Vreeland has enjoyed tremendous international success as well. She won a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics as a member of the Games’ record-setting 800-freestyle relay and claimed a gold medal at the 2014 Pan Pacific Championships; three gold medals at the 2013 World Championships; and a gold at the 2012 Short Course World Championships. Following her senior season, Vreeland was chosen as the 2014 Kansas City Sports Commission’s Sportswoman of the Year. She also collected multiple academic honors, including the SEC H. Boyd McWhorter Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award for all sports; NCAA and SEC postgraduate scholarships; the CSCAA Scholar-Athlete Award; the SEC and Georgia Honor Rolls; and the Ramsey Scholarship for Academic and Athletic Excellence. Vreeland additionally was named to the 2014 SEC Community Service Team for her volunteer work with Georgia’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and organizations such as Special Olympics, Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic and the Athens Food Bank.
The other 9 recipients of the award:
- Lauren Battista, Bentley University, basketball
- Abbey D’Agostino, Dartmouth, cross country/track & field
- Joe Fletcher, Loyola-Maryland, lacrosse
- Kristen Hixon, Grand Valley State, track & field
- Gabe Ikard, Oklahoma, football
- Kim Jacob, Alabama, gymnastics
- Megan Light, Emory, softball
- Nicole Michmerhuizen, Calvin College, cross country/track & field
- Mark Thomas, Livingstone College, basketball
