INDIANAPOLIS, IND. (queensathletics.com) – Former Queens University of Charlotte women's swimmer Kayla Tennant has been selected as a Top 30 Honoree for the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year, as officially announced by the NCAA on Thursday afternoon. After graduating last May, Tennant becomes the first Royal in Queens Athletics history to advance to the Top 30 of this prestigious honor.
"Kayla is our first NCAA Women of the Year nominee to make to the top 30," explained Royals Associate Athletic Director for Strategic Planning and Leadership Development and Director of Swimming Operations Jeff Dugdale. "In a year of firsts for our department, this is exciting. Her performance in the classroom and in the pool speaks for itself. What an honor to share the stage with her peers who all share amazing success stories. To see Kayla thrive at medical school at UNC Chapel Hill makes me so proud. Thank you for the legacy of excellence you left with this program."
Kayla Tennant was a three-time individual national champion, winning the 400-yard freestyle relay in 2022 and the 200 and 400 medley relays in 2021. She led her team to three national championships and earned 11 Coaches Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America All-America honors, including seven first-team recognitions. The 18-time All-Bluegrass Mountain Conference honoree won six individual conference titles, helping her team claim four conference championships. Tennant holds the school record for the 100 butterfly.
A summa cum laude graduate, Tennant received two first-team College Sports Communicators Academic All-American At-Large recognitions. Tennant was a finalist for the 2022 NCAA Walter Byers Graduate Scholarship and a recipient of a 2022 NCAA Elite 90 Award, presented to the student-athlete with the highest grade-point average competing at an NCAA championship finals site.
The 2022 Queen's Outstanding Student in Biology and Outstanding Student in Psychology has published research on student-athletes' social supports during the pandemic and the genome annotation of novel bacteriophages. Tennant was a team captain and served as secretary of Unified Royals, promoting inclusion for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. As a volunteer, she assisted with care for children with developmental disabilities and behavioral disorders, patients in pediatric cardiac intensive care and adults in a medically underserved area needing specialty cardiac care.
Selected from 577 school nominees — a group that was then narrowed to 156 nominees at the conference level — the Top 30 honorees include 10 from each of the three NCAA divisions. Each honoree has demonstrated excellence in academics, athletics, community service and leadership. The honorees represent 14 sports and include nine multisport student-athletes. They have a variety of majors, including biological and biomedical engineering, psychology, business, digital communications, education, nursing, law and policy, and robotics.
"As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Title IX, we recognize the impact of women on college sports and are honored to select 30 incredible student-athletes who have played instrumental roles on their campus, in their community and on their teams," said Renie Shields, chair of the Woman of the Year Selection Committee and senior associate athletics director/senior woman administrator at Saint Joseph's. "This accomplished and diverse group of women represent the millions of student-athletes who have participated in the strong history of women's sports."
The selection committee will select three honorees from each NCAA division, for a total of nine finalists. From those finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics will choose the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year.
For the first time in the award's history, the NCAA Woman of the Year will be named and the Top 30 will be celebrated at the NCAA Convention, which will be held in January in San Antonio.
Established in 1991, the award recognizes female student-athletes who have completed their undergraduate studies and distinguished themselves in their community, in athletics and in academics throughout their college careers.
The Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA) is a progressive NCAA Division I conference dedicated to the enhancement of opportunities for students. The conference was founded in 2008 to provide a championship opportunity for Swimming and Diving student-athletes and extended that opportunity with the addition of Beach Volleyball in the summer of 2015. The league's footprint extends into several states: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia. The CCSA is dedicated to the student-athletes who compete in its championships and their success in the classroom, in the field of competition, and life after graduation.