Ripon College Track & Field Senior
Nicole Zeman is a candidate for the 2017 NCAA Woman of the Year.
Established in 1991 and now in its 27th year, the NCAA Woman of the Year award honors graduating female college athletes who have exhausted their eligibility and distinguished themselves in academics, athletics, service and leadership throughout their collegiate careers.
A Business Management major from Sussex, Wis., Zeman is one of four nominees from the Midwest Conference and one of 197 Division-III student-athletes that have been nominated for the award, which is part of a record 543 nominees across all three divisions. She is also one of 122 multi-sport student-athletes that have been nominated, competing in both indoor and outdoor track & field, which are the two most common sports in which the nominees came from.
An Academic All-Conference performer in all four years with the Red Hawks, Zeman holds a cumulative Grade Point Average of 3.98. She has also won the MWC's Elite 20 Award for Indoor Track in each of the last two years, given to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade point average, participating in his or her respective sport's culminating championship or tournament event.
Zeman has proven to be just as successful on the track, winning the conference championship in the outdoor 400 hurdles in each of the last three years, while qualifying for Division-III Outdoor Nationals in 2016. A four-time MWC Outdoor Track Performer of the Week, Zeman holds five school individual records, and has ran a leg on three school relay records.
A team captain, Zeman earned Ripon's Leadership Award at the inaugural Rally Awards in May, which was chosen from every student-athlete in all 20 sports of the Ripon College athletic department. Zeman is also very active in the community, doing many volunteer activities with her sorority.
The next step in the NCAA Woman of the Year process is each conference selecting up to two conference nominees each from the pool of school nominees. The Woman of the Year selection committee, made up of representatives from the NCAA membership, will then choose the top 30 honorees — 10 from each division.
From the top 30, the selection committee determines the top three honorees from each division and announces the nine finalists in September. The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics then chooses the 2017 NCAA Woman of the Year from those nine.
The top 30 honorees will be recognized and the 2017 NCAA Woman of the Year will be announced at the annual award ceremony Oct. 22 in Indianapolis.
