Brenda Taylor of Harvard University, whose
personal-record time of :55.88 captured the national title in the 400
hurdles at the 2001 NCAA Track and Field Championships, has been named
winner of the Honda Award as the top woman collegiate athlete in track &
field for the 2000-01 collegiate year, according to the results of
national balloting among NCAA-member schools. She is the first Harvard
scholar-athlete ever to win a Honda Award.
As the Honda Award winner for track & field, Taylor, a senior
from Boone, N.C. (Watauga H.S.), also won the 100-meter dash (12.17) and
the 100-meter hurdles (13.62) at the 2001 Heptagonal Games Association
Track and Field Championships. Her time of 13.56 in the hurdles trials
broke the four-year-old meet record and she was accorded the meet'
Most Outstanding Athlete award. Taylor won the college division of the
400-meter hurdles at the 107th Penn Relays. Her time of 56.11 broke her
own school record. She was also voted the Outstanding Performer at the
Indoor Heptagonal Championships in February. A two-time All-American in
the 400 hurdles, Taylor is a psychology/biology major studying cognitive
neuroscience. She was selected to the Academic All-Ivy League and
District 1 Academic All-American teams. Her identical twin sister,
Lindsay, is a track athlete at Brown.
Previous Honda Award winners for track & field include UCLA'
Jackie Joyner (1983, 1985), Villanova' Vicki Huber (1988-89), and
Wisconsin' Suzy Favor (1990), each of whom was named Collegiate Woman
Athlete of the Year.
Taylor joins eleven other women collegiate athletes voted as the
most outstanding in their respective sports during the 2000-01
collegiate year.
They are: Jen Adams (lacrosse) of Maryland, Mohini Bhardwaj
(gymnastics) of UCLA, Greichaly Cepero (volleyball) of Nebraska, Marina
DiGiacomo (field hockey) of Old Dominion, Jennie Finch (softball) of
Arizona, Meredith Florance (soccer) of North Carolina, Laura Granville
(tennis) of Stanford, Kara Grgas-Wheeler (cross country) of Colorado,
Candy Hannemann (golf) of Duke, Misty Hyman (swimming and diving) of
Stanford, and Jackie Stiles (basketball) of Southwest Missouri State.
All Honda Award winners are automatically nominated for Collegiate Woman
Athlete of the Year honors.
The Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year will be determined by
separate balloting involving all NCAA-member institutions. The
announcement of the winner and presentation of the Honda-Broderick Cup
will be made at the 25th annual Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year
banquet, June 11 at Salt Lake City, Utah, site of the 2001 National
Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Convention.
The Division II and Division III Collegiate Women Athletes of
the Year will also be honored with Honda Awards at the banquet. The
Honda Inspiration Award, honoring the collegiate woman athlete who has
overcome great physical adversity to contribute to the recognizable
success of her team, will be presented to swimmer Kendra Berner of
Davidson (N.C.) College, who despite a congenital deformation of her
right hand, swam her team' fastest time this season and the
second-fastest in school history (24.86) for the 50 freestyle at the
Colonial Athletic Association Championships.
American Honda Motor Co., Inc. sponsors the awards program.
