Sade Olatoye nominated for 2020 NCAA Woman Athlete of the Year

By Akeem Lawal

NIGERIA athlete, Oyesade Olatoye has been nominated for the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year Award.

Sportsbiz247.blogspot.com reports that the Ohio State University Track and field student-athlete is one of the record 605 female college athletes nationwide for the 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.

An NCAA champion in the weight throw in 2019, 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.

This past February, Olatoye was announced as the winner of the Big Ten’s Wayne Duke Postgraduate Scholarship. She, along with Michigan State’s Scott Piper, will receive $10,000 towards their graduate school studies. She also earned the NCAA Winter Sports Postgraduate Scholarship.

Next year, Olatoye will begin pursuing a master’s of arts and bioethics at Ohio State’s College of Medicine.

The 2019 Ohio State Female Athlete of the Year, Olatoye 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). 

Olatoye was one of Nigeria’s top performers at the last African Games in Morocco where she won two medals, a gold in the Shot Put and bronze in the Hammer throw to help Nigeria finish top in the Track and Field events.

The NCAA Woman of the Year Award was established in 1991 to recognize graduating female student-athletes who have exhausted their eligibility and distinguished themselves in academics, athletics, service and leadership throughout their collegiate careers.