The NCAA announced the nominees for 2021 NCAA Woman of the Year on Thursday and Forester tennis player Julie Lord and golfer Amanda Lee were among the 535 student-athletes listed.
Lord came to the College from Dreieich, Germany, and has appeared atop the Forester women's tennis team's singles and doubles lineups throughout her career. She captured three Midwest Conference championships at #1 doubles and two at #1 singles and led Lake Forest to a league title and the second round of the NCAA Division III Tournament in 2018-19. With a record of 135-45, in singles and doubles combined, Lord finished her career ranked third in program history in overall victories. She was voted her team's Most Valuable Player as a freshman and senior and captained the squad in 2021. The communication major earned Academic All-MWC and Intercollegiate Tennis Association Scholar-Athlete honors all four years and graduated in May with a 3.945 cumulative grade point average. While on campus the Richter Scholar took part in the MWC Female and Ethnic Minority Mentoring Program and served as Athletic Council Vice President, a First Year Studies mentor, and a German tutor. She also donated her time through programs and organizations such as National Girls and Women in Sports Day, Special Olympics, and Feed My Starving Children.
Lee is far more local, hailing from nearby Skokie, Illinois. The women's golf team's two-year captain and four-time MWC owns the second-lowest career scoring average (85.40) and three of the top seven rounds in program history. She won six events during her career and led the Foresters to four top-three finishes at the conference championships. Lee earned All-MWC and Academic All-MWC accolades her first two seasons and was named All-SLIAC and a SLIAC All-Academic honoree each of the last two years. She graduated with a 3.96 GPA while majoring in business (accounting concentration) and international relations with a minor in Chinese. She was Athletic Council's vice president for administration, a member of the College's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, and a Richter Scholar. She also served as fundraising manager, mission director, vice president, and president for the College's Relay for Life program and as a teachers' assistant at the Gorton Community Center's Children's Drop-in Center. Lee received the College's Nicholas J. Wasylik Senior Athletic Award in 2021 for her drive, determination, and positive outgoing attitude.
(from NCAA.org)
Established in 1991, the NCAA Woman of the Year award is rooted in Title IX and recognizes graduating female college athletes who have exhausted their NCAA eligibility and distinguished themselves in academics, athletics, service and leadership throughout their collegiate careers.
The nominees competed in 24 sports across all three NCAA divisions, including 251 nominees from Division I, 107 from Division II and 177 from Division III. Multisport student-athletes account for 141 of the nominees.
The NCAA encourages member schools to honor their top graduating female college athletes by nominating them for the Woman of the Year award. Schools can recognize two nominees if at least one is a woman of color or international student-athlete.
Next, conferences will select up to two nominees each from their pool of member school nominees. All nominees who compete in a sport not sponsored by their school's primary conference, as well as associate conference nominees and independent nominees, will be considered by a selection committee. Then, the Woman of the Year selection committee, made up of representatives from the NCAA membership, will choose 10 women from each division to make up the Top 30.
The selection committee will determine the top three honorees in each division from the Top 30, and the nine finalists will be announced this fall. From those nine finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics will choose the 2021 NCAA Woman of the Year later this fall.