Courtesy: West Chester Athletics
INDIANAPOLIS, IND – The Woman of the Year Selection Committee has announced the national Top 30 honorees for the 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year Award, and among those recipients is West Chester University graduate and former swimming sensation Ann Carozza (West Chester, Pa./West Chester East).
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.
For the third time in the last four years, West Chester has a representative in the Top 30. Carozza is the fourth in a long line of women, who have been instrumental the areas of academics, athletics, community service and leadership – the four pillars of the award.
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.
“We are thrilled to celebrate 30 incredible student-athletes who surpassed the standard of excellence 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 decorated and diverse group represent the thousands of women competing in college sports each year and are contributing to the ongoing growth of women sports.”
Carozza is a two-time NCAA Division II national champion, earning victories in the 200-yard butterfly in 2022 and 2023. She holds the Division II record in both the 100-yard butterfly (52.06 seconds) and the 200 butterfly (1:55.98) and led her team to a fifth-place finish at the 2023 NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships.
Carozza was a 23-time College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America All-American, including nine individual first-team recognitions, and she was named the 2023 Philadelphia Area Sports Information Directors Association All-Area Performer of the Year. She earned 22 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference titles and was named PSAC Swimmer of the Year in 2022 and 2023.
The three-year team captain owns eight PSAC records and 10 West Chester records, holding the 200 freestyle and 100 and 200 butterfly individual records at both levels. A magna cum laude graduate, Carozza was a two-time second-team College Sports Communicators Academic All-America and five-time PSAC Scholar-Athlete recipient. She represented the swim team on the campus Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and was a participant in the Michael Horrocks Leadership Institute. Carozza coached the Rammies Special Olympics swim team from 2018-23 and served as a peer mentor through the Real Achievement Matters initiative for students who have an intellectual disability.
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.
The NCAA Woman of the Year will be named, and the Top 30 will be celebrated at the NCAA Convention in January.