Courtesy: Indiana Athletics
BLOOMINGTON — The Woman of the Year Selection Committee has announced the national Top 30 honorees for the 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year Award, featuring former Indiana diver Kristen Hayden.
Established in 1991, the award is rooted in Title IX and 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.
Kristen Hayden earned second place in the 3-meter springboard at the 2022 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships. In addition to one first-team College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America All-America award, she earned five second-team All-America honors during her career, including three while competing for Michigan and Minnesota. She also was a 2022 All-Big Ten second-team selection. In 2022, Hayden broke Indiana’s 3-meter dual meet record.
She made history as the first African American female diver to win a U.S. senior championship after her mixed synchronized 3-meter dive title at the 2021 USA Diving Winter National Championships and was the first African American to qualify for the FINA World Championships.
A summa cum laude graduate, Hayden was a three-time CSCAA Scholar All-American and earned the 2022 Big Ten Medal of Honor for academic and athletic excellence. The Academic All-Big Ten selection was recognized as a 2023 Indiana University Founders Scholar.
A founding member and president of the USA Diving Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council, she helps create initiatives to make diving more inclusive. During the pandemic, Hayden facilitated virtual diving and strength workouts for youth divers. She is a contributing author to the book “Dear Rebel,” written to inspire young girls to pursue their dreams. She actively shares her story of overcoming obstacles related to her auditory processing disorder, including as a keynote speaker at the 2022 Disability:IN global conference.
Selected from a record-breaking 619 nominees submitted by member schools — a group that was then narrowed to 164 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 15 sports, including two student-athletes representing NCAA Emerging Sports for Women. They have a variety of majors, including national security and intelligence, neuroscience, economics, civil engineering, education, nursing, computer science and business management.
The selection committee will determine 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 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year.