(MARQUETTE COMMUNICATIONS) – Former Marquette University volleyball standout Allie Barber has been chosen by the BIG EAST Conference as one of its two nominees for the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year Award, it was announced on Tuesday.
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.
Barber enjoyed a decorated career with Marquette and was chosen as the 2019 BIG EAST Player of the Year, an honor she also earned in 2017, marking just the fourth time in a 30-years a player repeated the award. Barber is the first three-time AVCA All-American in Marquette history, which includes a second-team selection in the 2018 season and the only player to earn First Team Senior CLASS Award accolades. The Cedarburg, Wisconsin native is Marquette’s all-time kills leader with 1,870 career kills.
Barber graduated in 2020 with a 3.98 GPA majoring in biomedical sciences. She was the Marquette President’s Award winner for the 2019-20 academic year and earned the 2019-20 Marquette Excellence in Athletics Award. Barber was the CoSIDA Academic All-American Team Member of the Year and named First Team CoSIDA Academic All-District. She was extremely engaged in community events, including traveling to Costa Rica to build multi-purpose courts for young athletes in the Courts for Kids student-athlete service trip in 2018.
The BIG EAST also selected Connecticut field hockey’s Svea Boker as the second league nominee.
Conferences selected up to two nominees each from the pool of school nominees. 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. The selection committee will determine the top three honorees from each division from the Top 30 and announce the nine finalists in September. From those nine finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics will then choose the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year. The Top 30 honorees will be celebrated, and the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year will be named this fall.
The NCAA Woman of the Year program was established in 1991 and honors the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of graduating female college athletes from all three divisions. To be eligible, a nominee must have competed and earned a varsity letter in an NCAA-sponsored sport and must have earned her undergraduate degree by Summer 2020 (or demonstrate that she would have earned her degree if not for the COVID-19 pandemic).
