INDIANAPOLIS (NCAA/SMU) – Madison van Meel was named a candidate for the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year award, the NCAA announced on Thursday. She recently completed a highly-decorated SMU Rowing career and earned a master's in education.

As a mainstay in the first varsity eight, van Meel helped lead the Mustang program to new heights. The first varsity eight won its first three American Athletic Conference event championships and the team has won its first two AAC titles, sweeping all four races in 2021 and 2022. She was All-AAC First Team in each of the past two seasons.
 
The Mustangs also earned the program's first two trips to the NCAA Championships. The 1V8+ finished 13^th out of 22 at the 2021 NCAAs, and followed that up by finishing 11^th in 2022. The team finished in the top 12 each of the past two years, earning a No. 10 final CRCA ranking in 2021.
 
In addition to having a 4.0 grade-point-average in her graduate program, she has been named a Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association (CRCA) Scholar-Athlete and is a two-time AAC All-Academic Team honoree.
 
The award is in its 32^nd year honoring academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of graduating female college athletes from all three divisions. There are just 577 nominees for the honor with 248 from Division I.
 
Next, conference offices will select their nominees for NCAA Woman of the Year, which will be announced on ncaa.org in August. Conference nominations are forwarded to the NCAA Woman of the Year Selection Committee, which identifies the top 10 honorees in each of the three NCAA divisions. From those 30 honorees, the selection committee then determines the three finalists in each division for a total of nine finalists. The Committee on Women's Athletics will select the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year from the nine finalists. For the first time in the award's history, the award ceremony will take place during the NCAA Convention in January.

NCAA Release

Being A Part Of Growth: Juliet Traylor, Madison van Meel