OU gymnast nominated by Big 12 for NCAA Woman of the Year Award

NORMAN — Former University of Oklahoma gymnast Olivia Trautman is one of the Big 12 Conference’s two nominees for the prestigious 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year, the league announced Tuesday.

Joining Trautman as a nominee from the Big 12 is former Texas volleyball player Logan Eggleston. The pair was selected by Big 12 senior woman administrators from a larger group of nominees from Big 12 schools.

The NCAA Woman of the Year program honors the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of graduating female college athletes from all three divisions. To be eligible, nominees must have competed and earned a varsity letter in an NCAA-sponsored sport and must have completed eligibility in their primary sport.

Trautman sustained significant injuries each of the past four years during preseason training that forced her to miss the start of, or even much of, each of those seasons. The most recent injury in fall of 2022 resulted in team physicians and coaches recommending she medically retire from the sport. She did not follow that advice and returned in spectacular fashion in 2023.

After missing the first three meets of the season following surgery to repair a torn patellar tendon in her knee, the 10time NCAA All-American won her first NCAA individual title in April when she scored a 9.95 on vault at the NCAA Championships. She also earned first-team All-America honors on balance beam by scoring a 9.95 at nationals and was a key cog as OU won its second straight NCAA team title (her third).

The Champlin, Minn., product also earned two of her four career Big 12 individual titles in 2023 (vault and uneven bars) and was named Big 12 Event Specialist of the Week on Jan. 31 after she recorded a 9.95 on beam at No. 9 Denver in her first competition after returning from injury. She also recorded a perfect 10 on vault in a win over No. 2 Florida on March 3. Remarkably, she posted a 9.95 on vault in eight out of her nine performances on the season.

Trautman graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in health and exercise science while minoring in psychology, and finished her academic career with a 3.77 cumulative grade-point average. She posted a perfect 4.0 GPA during the spring 2021 and spring and fall 2022 semesters, and was named to the Academic All-Big 12 Team and earned WCGA Academic All-America honors each of the past four seasons.

Trautman also earned the 2023 University of Oklahoma Athletics Council Achievement and Leadership Awards. The Achievement Award honors graduating student-athletes who have overcome great personal, academic and/or emotional odds to achieve academic success while participating in intercollegiate athletics, and the Leadership Award is presented to studentathletes who demonstrate extraordinary leadership in representing OU and their teams. She also spent time volunteering at Food and Shelter, Inc. and a local elementary school.

A record-breaking 619 female student-athletes were nominated by NCAA member schools in consideration for the 2023 Woman of the Year Award.

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 conference-level nominees. The top 30 honorees will be announced in October.

The selection committee will then determine the top three honorees in each division from the Top 30, and the nine finalists will be announced in November.

From those nine finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics will choose the 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year. The honorees will be celebrated at the Woman of the Year Award Ceremony at the NCAA Convention in Phoenix in January.

Since 1991, The NCAA Woman of the Year program has recognized graduating female student-athletes for excellence in academics, athletics, community service, and leadership throughout their college careers.