Anna Winter, a 2020 Upper Iowa graduate and former Peacock volleyball player, is one of 605 female college athletes to be nominated for the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year Award.
Rooted in Title IX, the NCAA Woman of the Year 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.
The nominees represent all three NCAA divisions, including 259 nominees from Division I, 126 from Division II and 220 from Division III. Nominees competed in 24 sports, with multisport student-athletes accounting for 128 of the nominees.
Winter, a native of Rochester, Minnesota, earned Upper Iowa's first AVCA All-American recognition in 2019. She became the first Peacock to garner All-Central Region honors and was named All-NSIC First Team and to the NSIC All-Tournament Team. She earned the NSIC Elite 18 Award for volleyball and was a Myles Brand All-Academic with Distinction Award winner. This past season, she finished first on the team, second in the conference and seventh in all of NCAA Division II with 4.30 kills per set and posted a .309 hitting percentage with just 84 errors in 1245 attempts. In 2019, Winter tallied 469 kills, 506.5 points, 124 digs, 41 total blocks (3 solo), 15 aces, and five assists setting the individual season program records for kills, kills per set, attack attempts, and points and became the fifth Peacock to reach 1,000 career kills on Sept. 14. In her career, Winter collected 1,349 kills, and only 283 errors in 4,086 attempts an d added 447 digs and 148 blocks. She was also named the 2018-19 Willis R. Kelly Scholar-Athlete Award for being the NSIC's top female student-athlete as a junior.
Winter completed her undergraduate work at Upper Iowa as a triple major in mathematics, chemistry and biology with a 4.00 grade point average. Winter earned a place on the Athletics Director's Honor Roll every semester and is a three-time NSIC All-Academic Team member. She has received multiple scholarships including the G.C. Baker Scholarship the Excellence in Mathematics Scholarship, the Excellence in Mathematics Scholarship and the Goebel Scholarship. The Baker, Goebel, and Excellence in Mathematics Scholarships are given to one recipient per year and are chosen by the science and mathematics faculty, who select the top student academically for each award. Winter is an active participant on campus and in the community. She is a member of ENACTUS (campus student entrepreneurial group), a mentor for freshmen student-athletes through the Athlete Peer Educator Program, and a tutor in mathematics, biology, and chemistry. During the summer of 2019, Winter was accepted into the NASA Summer Training Program, a highly competitive program which accepts about 20 students nationally each year.
Member schools are encouraged to honor their top graduating female college athletes each year by submitting their names for consideration for the Woman of the Year Award. Schools can recognize two nominees if at least one is a woman of color or international student-athlete.
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.
