The College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) announced on Thursday that Katie Ledecky has been named the Division I Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for 2017-2018. These honors are given annually and are selected by CoSIDA.
Ledecky won the “Women At-Large” Member of the Year honors earlier in the summer, where swimming and diving doesn’t have its own category. The Division I sports that receive awards are Football, Men’s Basketball, Women’s Basketball, Softball, Men’s Track/XC, Women’s Track/XC, Men’s Soccer, Women’s Soccer, Baseball, and Volleyball. The other sports are lumped into ‘Women’s at-Large’ and ‘Men’s at-Large’. Out of the pool of winners from each sport and the 2 At-Large winners, an overall winner is chosen as the Athlete of the Year.
Ledecky excelled both in the pool and in the classroom, boasting a 3.99 GPA through 2 years of school, while continuing to be the most dominant female distance swimmer ever. Katie is also the first Sophomore to ever win this award. In her second, and final, season with Stanford, Ledecky broke the 400 IM NCAA and American records, and claimed individual NCAA titles in the 500 free and 1650 free. She said of winning the award in part, “I wish to express my tremendous gratitude to my classmates, teammates and coaches, the Stanford Athletics department, and the faculty and administration at Stanford who support my endeavors every day and make both ‘school and pool’ wonderful places to be in Palo Alto”.
Stanford Head Coach Greg Meehan stated, “We are incredibly proud of Katie and everything she has accomplished. This is a tremendous honor and certainly well-deserved. Katie sets the standard in her pursuit of both academic and athletic excellence. Her work ethic is just as strong in the classroom as it is in the pool, and I’m happy all her efforts were recognized with this award”.
PJ Ransford (University of Michigan) was named the Men’s At-Large Member of the Year, graduating with a 4.00 GPA.
Other Honorees:
- Kelly Barnhill (Florida) – Softball
- Cherise Beynon (New Mexico) – Women’s Basketball
- Jevon Carter (West Virginia) – Men’s Basketball
- Trey Culver (Texas Tech) – Men’s Track/XC
- Devlin Granberg (Dallas Baptist) – Baseball
- Meghan Hegarty (Navy) – Women’s Soccer
- Lily Johnson (Missouri State) – Women’s Volleyball
- Lynne Mooradian (U.S. Military Academy) – Women’s Track/XC
- Kevin Politz (Wake Forest) – Men’s Soccer
- Marlon Walls (Stephen F. Austin) – Football
To read the full press release from CoSIDA, click here.
We probably will never know how much she actually cares about college awards because they are often very arbitrary. It seems to me she had enough of college swimming in her freshman year and then only 15min barrier and record in 400IM was of her concern.
Superwoman!