The Red and Black

Issue date: 6/16/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Daniel Shirey Courtney Kupets is one of four finalists for the Honda Award. [Click to enlarge]

Georgia's Courtney Kupets, the most decorated competitor in collegiate gymnastics history, is one step closer to being the nation's top female student-athlete for all sports for 2008-09. On Monday, Kupets was named one of five finalists for the prestigious Honda-Broderick Cup, the Collegiate Women¹s Sports Awards' annual top honor designating the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year.

The finalists were chosen from previously announced Honda Sports Award winners in 12 different NCAA-sanctioned sports, by a vote from among more than 1,000 NCAA-member institutions.

The other four finalists are Colorado's Jennifer Barringer (track and field); Penn State's Nicole Fawcett (volleyball); Washington's Danielle Lawrie (softball); and Connecticut's Renee Montgomery, (basketball). The winner will be named at a press conference on June 22 at Columbia University in New York, where she will be presented with her award by softball legend Lisa Fernandez, winner of the Honda-Broderick Cup in 1993.

Kupets led Georgia to its fifth straight NCAA Championship team title, while also winning individual national titles in the all-around, bars, beam and floor. She became the first gymnast ever to win a national title in all five individual events (including the vault in 2007) and finished the 2009 season ranked No. 1 in all-around, bars and beam, and second on floor and vault. Kupets received five first-team All-America honors, making a total of 15 for her career (the maximum for only competing three years).

She is the all-time NCAA leader with nine individual championships and was named SEC, AAI National Senior and NCAA Southeast Regional Gymnast of the Year.

At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, Kupets won a Silver Medal with her fellow U.S. team members in the team all-around competition, as well as an individual Bronze Medal in the uneven bars. She is a National Honor Society member and was chosen as ESPN The Magazine First Team Academic All-American in both 2009 and 2007 and is a recipient of NCAA and SEC postgraduate
scholarships.

- Georgia Sports Communications

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