CONWAY, S.C. – Kassidy Smith of the Coastal Carolina softball team has been nominated for the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year award. A record of 605 female college athletes were nominated by NCAA member schools for the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year award this year.
Established in 1991, the NCAA Woman of the Year award recognizes graduating female college athletes who have exhausted their eligibility and distinguished themselves in academics, athletics, service, and leadership throughout their collegiate careers.
Smith was named to the 2019 Sun Belt Conference Championship All-Tournament team and was twice named the Sun Belt Player of the Week over her time at CCU. She played in 189 games over her Chant career, hitting .253 with 38 home runs, two triples, 27 doubles, 100 RBIs, and 109 runs scored. She also posted a .564 career slugging percentage and a .441 career on-base percentage, while playing solid in the field with a .992 career fielding percentage.
Aside from being a standout on the softball diamond, Smith was just as much a star in the classroom. The recent graduate held a 3.662-grade point average in biology, garnering Coastal Carolina University Dean's List honors four times and earning NFCA Academic All-American recognition in 2017-18.
Graduating cum laude with her bachelor's degree in biology and a double minor in chemistry and psychology in May 2020, Smith served as the president of Coastal Carolina's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and was Coastal's SAAC representative for the Sun Belt Conference. She was also co-president of the Honors Student Council, an Honors Research Fellow, and a Kenneth E. Swain Scholar award recipient.
She has been a constant in the community, having worked with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and Miracle League, while also volunteering her time for causes such as Caring for Kindergarteners, The Shepard's Table, Coastal SAAC Hurricane Harvey Food/Necessities Drive, and Adopt-A-Chant.
The nominees represent all three NCAA divisions, including 259 nominees from Division I, 126 from Division II, and 220 from Division III. Nominees competed in 24 sports, with multisport student-athletes accounting for 128 of the nominees.
Conference offices 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 the Top 30 honorees — 10 from each division.
From the Top 30, the Woman of the Year selection committee will determine the top three honorees in each division and announce nine finalists. 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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