Past Garnet NCAA Woman of the Year Nominees

INDIANAPOLIS - Emma Morgan-Bennett '20 has been selected as a Top 30 honoree for the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year Award, announced by the selection committee on Thursday. For the second consecutive year, a Garnet student-athlete has advanced to the Top 30 for the prestigious NCAA Woman of the Year award as former soccer standout Marin McCoy advanced as a Top 9 Finalist during the 2019 selection process. In 2015, Supriya Davis represented Swarthmore as a Top 9 Finalist. 
 
Over the summer, Morgan-Bennett was joined by teammate Mehra den Braven as the nominees from the Centennial Conference. The duo were the eighth and ninth Garnet student-athletes to receive the nomination for the NCAA Woman of the Year from the conference. The pair joined the illustrious list of Caitlin Mularkey (2009), Katie Lytle (2014), Aarti Rao (2014), Davis (2015), Tess Wei (2017), Sarah Wallace (2018) and McCoy (2019). In 2001, Kristen English represented the Garnet as the Pennsylvania nominee. The nine selections from Swarthmore to represent the Centennial Conference is the most by any school in the conference.

Morgan-Bennett, a New York City native, excelled both on the court and in the classroom. She was recently named a 2020 Marshall Scholar, one of just 46 students from the United States to receive the prestigious honor. Marshall Scholars are invited to pursue graduate studies in the United Kingdom, where Morgan-Bennett will pursue a master of arts degree in screen documentary from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2020 and then continue to pursue a doctorate in social policy and intervention from Oxford University.
 
She was a member of the 2019 Philadelphia Inquirer Academic All-Area Team, two-time Academic All-Centennial Team (2018 & 2019), and three-time CC Academic Honor Roll (2017, 2018, 2019). The middle blocker earned American Volleyball Coaches Association All-America (AVCA) Honorable Mention honors in 2018. She is a two-time AVCA All-Region pick (2018, 2019) and two-time All-Centennial Second Team selection (2018, 2019). She finished her career ranked second all-time in blocks (318) and assist blocks (238) and fourth all-time with 80 solo blocks.

In the community, Morgan-Bennett was also a leader on campus and the Swarthmore community. She founded Athletics for Diversity and Inclusion (ADI), a campus-wide coalition that centralizes conversations surrounding athletes' identities. This coalition hosts two representatives from every team on campus and organizes campus-wide events, educational programs, and community service throughout the year. With help from ADI, she was awarded Swarthmore's William J. Cooper Foundation Grant, which supports topical events featuring eminent guests in their fields of expertise. Morgan-Bennett helped spearhead an event titled "Beyond The Field: Activism, Athletics, and Empowerment in the Modern Political Era," a teach-in that occurred in February 2020 and featured former Eagles' Super Bowl champion, All-Pro, and anti-incarceration activist, Malcolm Jenkins. Through student-panels and a moderated conversation with Jenkins that drew over 600 students and community members, Swarthmore engaged in an examination of the intersections between political dissent and athletic capital. As the Co-founder and Executive Director of Eat at the Table Theatre Company (E.A.T.T.), she created a youth theater company for young actors of color to explore and celebrate race through repurposed and original theater pieces. Additional exploits of Morgan-Bennett include serving on Swarthmore President Valerie Smith's hiring committee for its Title IX coordinator, participating as a keynote panelist at the NCAA Convention on the topic of NCAA's Advocates of Change: Student-Athlete Activism and Expression in the 21st Century, and working as a summer research intern for the National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW).  

Selected from a record 605 school nominees — a group that was then narrowed to 161 nominees by conference offices — the Top 30 honorees include 10 from each of the three NCAA divisions. All have demonstrated excellence in academics, athletics, community service and leadership. The honorees competed in 14 sports and studied a broad range of academic majors, including nursing, mechanical engineering, biochemistry, criminal justice, kinesiology, accounting and advertising.

"The 30 honorees selected this year excelled in the classroom and in competition while also remaining committed to serving their peers and communities," said Suzette McQueen, chair of the Woman of the Year Selection Committee and senior associate commissioner for external relations and strategic marketing/senior woman administrator at the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association. "These outstanding women represent the thousands of diverse and talented women competing in college sports each year, and we're proud to recognize their achievements on and off the field."

The selection committee will announce the nine finalists, including three women from each NCAA division, in mid-October. From those finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics will select the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year. The Top 30 will be celebrated, and the Woman of the Year will be named this fall.