Aggie NCAA Woman of the Year—Again!

By Mark Honbo

When lacrosse player Kelly Albin was called to the podium at a formal banquet in Indiana to receive the NCAA Woman of the Year award in October, it was a double surprise: The NCAA had picked a student-athlete who excelled in a sport she had never played before setting foot on the campus. And it had, for the third time in five years, selected a student from UC Davis for the prestigious national honor.

What wasn’t surprising was that Albin was being recognized for a combination of athletics, academics, community service and leadership—the criteria for the NCAA award and qualities that characterized Albin since her high school days in Fort Bragg. There Albin had been a four-year all-league honoree, a Santa Rosa Press Democrat Scholar-Athlete of the Year and class valedictorian.

She was an accomplished athlete, having competed in softball, basketball and track and field, and having excelled in soccer—the sport she anticipated playing when she arrived at UC Davis. She was, however, cut from the soccer team before the start of her freshman year. Disappointed but not defeated, Albin joined the campus’s young lacrosse team in order to keep in shape for the soccer team’s next tryouts. But, fortunately, she stuck with lacrosse and went on to be a standout in the sport, twice named to All-America first teams.

Her record off the field at UC Davis was equally impressive.

Albin served as a coordinator for Peer Counselors in Athletics and the UC Davis Student-Athletic Advisory Committee. She spent her 2003 fall quarter in Urubamba, Peru, volunteering for the ProPeru Service Corps; she built stoves in adobe homes, planted saplings for a reforestation project and helped install a septic system and toilets in a preschool.

She completed her degree in winter quarter 2004—halfway through her final playing season—graduating magna cum laude and earning the Department of Food Science Citation as the outstanding senior. Albin’s 3.95 grade-point average drew a number of scholar-athlete honors, including Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Academic All-Conference and IWLCA (Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association) All-Academic nods, an additional Academic All-America selection and a $7,500 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Award.

On June 6, Albin was honored almost simultaneously on both coasts. At the annual IWLCA awards banquet in Baltimore, she was named the country’s Division II Scholar-Athlete of the Year. That night, though, she was in Davis accepting the university’s W.P. Lindley Award, presented to the campus’s outstanding achiever in athletics, academics and leadership.

Then in mid-September, the NCAA announced its state winners for the Woman of the Year award, culling 52 names (one from each state, plus representatives from the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico) from 276 nominations from all three divisions. Albin made that list, then four days later, was selected one of 10 finalists.

With her selection to this elite class, Albin became the sixth UC Davis student-athlete to achieve the state-level honor and the fifth to advance to the top 10. Soccer standout Kim Haskell was the first Aggie honoree when she represented California in 1997. The UC Davis track and field program saw three of its runners reach the top 10 in the span of four years. Jamila Demby became the first Aggie Woman of the Year winner in 1999, Kameelah Elarms made finalist in 2001, then Tanisha Silas won the award in 2002. Even more impressive is that all three were members of the same All-American relay squad in 1999. Softball’s Susan Churchwell was the most recent honoree before Albin, climbing to the top 10 in 2003.

Now with three recipients, UC Davis ties the University of Georgia for the most winners during the 14-year history of the award. And while the prominence of a single honoree can never be understated, the significance of a trifecta of winners is not lost on athletics officials.

Senior Associate Athletics Director Pam Gill-Fisher, who has served on past NCAA Woman of the Year selection committees, believes the “student-first” philosophy of the athletics department attracts student-athletes who offer the total package of academic strength and athletics prowess. UC Davis is also a campus that values and encourages service by its students.

Says Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Judy Sakaki, under whose watch the athletics department operates, “To have Kelly win the NCAA Woman of the Year award tells us that the university focuses on the right thing, which is the balance of achievement not just on the field, but also in the classroom and in the community.”

In addition, the honor is a testament to a long history of campus support and commitment to providing athletic opportunities for women. UC Davis has led the way in compliance with the Title IX requirement that colleges provide equal sporting opportunities for men and women. Today, 13 of the 25 intercollegiate varsity sports offered are for women, with a 14th—women’s golf—being added next year.

“It’s just part of our philosophy to include as many student athletes as possible,” says Athletic Director Greg Warzecka.

It’s a philosophy that has earned the campus accolades beyond five NCAA Women of the Year finalists. UC Davis is a six-time winner of the Sears Directors’ Cup, in recognition of the breadth of opportunities for both men and women. In the two years that Sports Illustrated for Women named top schools for women athletes, UC Davis topped the list each time.

It’s a strong program for all student-athletes, as acknowledged by Sports Illustrated again when it named UC Davis the best Division II school for athletics for the 2001–02 year, noting the academic strength and the large number of students participating in intramural sports. In addition, UC Davis has long ranked among the top institutions in the number of Academic All-District and Academic All-America honorees, as well as recipients of the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Award.

Now, as UC Davis makes the transition from Division II to Division I, it remains committed to that same tradition of the student-athlete, with an emphasis on academics and service.

In the early 1990s—a time of budget stringency—the campus was faced with the prospect of cutting men’s sports in order to comply with Title IX and fulfill its commitment to equal opportunity. But teams were saved from the chopping block when students voted in 1994–95 to increase their fees for athletics. The cash infusion allowed the campus to add women’s water polo, crew and lacrosse teams to the varsity lineup.

It was just three years after lacrosse was bumped up from club status that Kelly Albin was looking for a sport to keep her in soccer shape. At the time only a handful of California high schools offered girls’ lacrosse programs, so then-Head Coach Brendan Blakeley had a “no experience necessary” policy, finding top women athletes whose skills in other sports could translate well to lacrosse.

Under the tutelage of Blakeley and Assistant Coach Danner Doud-Martin, Albin and nine other hopefuls participated in special fall practices for beginners. In these sessions, lacrosse newcomers learned the basic skills of the game, the complex rules, then the tactics of the sport.

“From the first 10 minutes, it was obvious that she was a good athlete with great lateral mobility,” Blakeley says. “She did everything you would hope someone in her situation would do in order to get better. She always pushed herself to improve, getting to practice 20 minutes before and staying 20 minutes after.”

Albin played little that first year, but as she honed her skills, she became a significant contributor as a sophomore. In 2001, she scored 15 goals and led her team in assists, enjoying a season that brought her second-team All-America honors from the IWLCA.

During Albin’s junior year, University of Virginia All-American Elaine Jones took over as head coach. Building on skills instilled by coach Blakeley, Jones strengthened Albin’s stick-handling ability and advanced her level of play. That year, Albin was named to two All-America first teams, led the team in most offensive categories and landed her first Academic All-America award.

Unfortunately, during her senior year Albin was sidelined by a serious knee injury. But an NCAA “medical hardship” provision allowed her to return for a fifth year. Other than a position change from midfielder to attacker, she seemed to pick up where she left off. In 2004, Albin scored a career-high 43 goals, set a school record of 29 assists and earned “consensus” All-America honors—that is, first-team selection by all three organizations that bestow such distinction.

Today Albin remains at UC Davis, pursuing a master’s degree in food science. Her lacrosse career may be over, but as so often happens, the athlete in her remains. In fact, within hours after returning from Indianapolis, Albin raced back to campus to play in an intramural floor hockey game.

Floor hockey? Yet another sport? If history is any guide, here, too, Albin will be a winner.