Stanford's Madison Brunette named Pac-12 Women's Gymnastics Scholar-Athlete of the Year
SAN FRANCISCO – Stanford senior Madison Brunette has been named the 2022 Pac-12 Women’s Gymnastics Scholar-Athlete of the Year, the Conference office announced today. The award, which is presented in each of the 24 sports the Pac-12 sponsors, was established to honor collegiate student-athletes that are standouts both academically and in their sports discipline.
A pre-med biology major from Seattle, Brunette is on her way to earning her undergraduate degree while maintaining a 3.83 grade-point average. A two-time WCGA Scholastic All-American (2020-21) and 2021 Pac-12 Academic Honor Roll recipient, she has an MCAT score of 518 and owns career-high scores of 9.825 on vault and 9.875 on bars and on floor. Brunette is the second Cardinal to earn the Pac-12 Women's Gymnastics Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors (Carly Janiga, 2010).
On campus, she spends time as research assistant, where she performs experiments examining the effects of lactate kinetics and thermoregulation on human performance; dictating protocols and organizing testing schedules; and cleaning, reformatting and structuring raw data into figures. She also completes literature research to further inform and guide lab investigations and participates and presents in weekly journal club meetings.
Brunette is a member of Athletes in Medicine at Stanford (AIMS), which supports student-athletes in the medical field by fostering an intimate community of current and former Stanford student-athletes in medicine, and is also involved in Partners for Academic Excellence (PAE), where she leads a section of freshman student-athletes each week to help them both integrate into the student-athlete community and create meaningful relationships to develop a campus identity beyond the realm of athletics.
In order to be eligible for the Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year award, student-athletes must be a senior (in athletics eligibility) on track to receive a degree, have a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or higher, participate in at least 50 percent of the scheduled contests in the sport and have a minimum one year in residence at the institution. Each Pac-12 institution may nominate one individual per sport, and the winners are selected by a committee of Pac-12 staff members at the conclusion of each sport’s regular season. The athletics accomplishments of the nominees are a consideration in voting for the award.
A Scholar-Athlete of the Year is named in each of the Pac-12’s 24 sponsored sports: baseball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, beach volleyball, men’s cross country, women’s cross country, football, men’s golf, women’s golf, women’s gymnastics, women’s lacrosse, men’s rowing, women’s rowing, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, softball, men’s swimming & diving, women’s swimming & diving, men’s tennis, women’s tennis, men’s track & field, women’s track & field, women’s volleyball, and wrestling. The award was first established during the 2007-08 academic year.
ALSO NOMINATED: Amara Cunningham, Washington; Madi Dagen, Oregon State; MacKinzie Kane, Arizona; Samantha Sakti, UCLA; Nina Schank, California; Sydney Soloski, Utah; Megan Thompson, Arizona State.