Sade Olatoye of OSU women’s track and field a NCAA Woman of the Year nominee

Ohio State women’s track and field weight-throw NCAA champ Sade Olatoye has been nominated for the NCAA Woman of the Year.

Sade Olatoye of the Ohio State women’s track and field team may have been lights out in the women’s weight throw, winning the NCAA title last season, but that’s not all that she should be known for. In fact, this past week, she was nominated as one of 605 female college athletes nationwide to be nominated for the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year Award.

Member schools are encouraged to honor their top graduating female college athletes each year by submitting their names for consideration for the Woman of the Year Award, and it appears as though Ohio State has decided to nominate Olatoye for her efforts on and off the field.

According to the release from OSU, Olatoye won six Big Ten championships and was a two-time Big Ten Indoor Field Athlete of the Year. She graduated this past May with her degree in health sciences and was also a Big Ten Distinguished Scholar for mainlining a grade-point average of 3.70 or better in the 2019-20 academic year. Olatoye was also a four-time OSU Scholar-Athlete and three-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree.

Olatoye was also the 2019 Ohio State Female Athlete of the Year, and holds four Ohio State records: both indoor (17.88m) and outdoor (17.88m) shot put marks along with weight throw (24.46m) and hammer throw (67.49m). She also competed for the Nigerian Senior National Team and won the shot put championship at the 2019 All African Games in Rabat, Morocco. Olatoye also competed for Nigeria at the 2019 World Championships.

Outside of athletics, she is active in the African Youth League, Ohio State’s Sexual Violence Prevention Task Force, and was the council chair of the Peer Educators, among other activities.

The next step is for individual conference offices to select up to two nominees each from their pool of member school nominees. Then, the Woman of the Year selection committee, made up of representatives from the NCAA membership, will choose the Top 30 honorees –10 from each division.

Out of those 30, nine finalists will be selected (three for each division). The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics then will choose the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year, who will be named this fall.

 

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