Kocian Nominated for NCAA Woman of the Year Award

Gymnast Madison Kocian has been selected by UCLA as its nominee for the NCAA Woman of the Year award. The 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.

Kocian has earned a multitude of awards this season, including the 2020 Pac-12 Gymnastics Scholar-Athlete of the Year, the UCLA Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year and the Pac-12 Tom Hansen Conference Medal. A Spring 2020 graduate in psychology, Kocian finished with a 3.850 cumulative GPA and earned second-team Academic All-America honors and was a three-time Women's Collegiate Gymnastics Association (WCGA) Scholastic All-American and Pac-12 All-Academic honoree. She received UCLA's Athletic Director's Academic Excellence Award in 2020 for completing her career with Director's Honor Roll distinction every quarter at UCLA and was also a UCLA All-Academic team honoree in 2018 and 2019.

Just a few months after winning team gold and uneven bars silver at the 2016 Olympic Games, Kocian made NCAA history when she became the first Olympic gold medalist to compete in collegiate gymnastics. She went on to win Pac-12 Freshman of the Week honors twice and Pac-12 Gymnast of the Week acclaim in 2017 and captured 16 individual titles, including the NCAA Regional uneven bars and floor exercise titles. In 2018, Kocian helped UCLA win the NCAA team title and became one of just two female gymnasts ever to win NCAA, World and Olympic championships. The seven-time All-American and five-time All-Pac-12 honoree scored two career perfect 10s on uneven bars, the event on which she won Olympic silver in 2016 and World gold in 2015.

Kocian served as the team representative in UCLA's Student-Athlete Mentor program and has volunteered her time and influence to NEGU as an All-Star Ambassador, the Positive Coaching Alliance, Make-A-Wish and many other charities and organizations. She plans on pursuing a career as an orthopedic physician assistant.

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.