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The Medalist Club - Gymtide.com
The Booster Organization for the University of Alabama Gymnastics Program
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Kristin Sterner is use to competing against the best of the best. The former University of Alabama gymnast helped her team to four straight NCAA team finals, including a win in 2002 and a runner-up finish last season, her senior year. She earned 11 All-American honors over her four-year career and helped Alabama to two Southeastern Conference titles and four NCAA Regional crowns. This weekend though, the competition will be the toughest she's ever faced. She and nine other women from across the nation are finalists for the NCAA Woman of the Year award, given annually since 1991. The finalists were selected by a committee comprised of athletics administrators from NCAA member colleges and universities from more than 340 entries. The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics will select the 2003 NCAA Woman of the Year from among the 10 finalists. The national winner will be announced at the awards dinner at the Indianapolis Downtown Marriott in Indianapolis. Sterner is in this select company for a variety of reasons that extend beyond her accomplishments on the arena floor. The Tide's team captain her last two seasons, the Ionia, Mich. native was crowned the Southeastern Conference Scholar-Athlete of the Year last season and she carries a 3.9 grade point average in biology. She's going to medical school next year and plans on specializing in sports medicine. She has gone about her career in such a low key, understated manner, that it would be easy to underestimate her impact on this Alabama program. But there are two facts that tell the true impact Sterner has had on this program. Number one is that Sterner is the first Alabama gymnast since the seniors of 1991 to graduate with three championship rings. And the biggest indicator of her place in the pantheon of Alabama greats is the edict that Alabama head coach Sarah Patterson issues at the beginning of every recruiting season. "We say it every year,"Patterson said. "When we start the recruiting process each year it's always the same, "Let's find the next Kristin Sterner.'Kristin is the epitome of what we look for in a student-athlete. She's selfless, hardworking, driven, dedicated and when she came to us, she hadn't reached her full potential as an athlete yet. She still had room to grow." And grow she did, and fast, helping lead Alabama to the 2000 SEC Championship as a freshman. Two-time NCAA champion Andree Pickens, a sophomore that year, tabbed Sterner as one of the keys to that title. "When Kristin came along, I knew that we'd be better,"Pickens said. "I knew that here was someone we could count on every time up. She was a rock." Two more titles later and a slew of individual accomplishments, Sterner has amassed a resume that will place her on the dais Saturday night with a chance to be crowned the nation's top female student-athlete. The seventh Alabama gymnast to earn the state honor, Sterner is the third to become a finalist, joining Meredith Willard in 1997 and Merritt Booth in 1998. In the 13 year history of the accolade, Crimson Tide athletes have been the state's honoree nine times. The 10 finalists for 2003 are:
NCAA Woman of the YearFirst awarded in 1991, the NCAA Woman of the Year program honors academic and athletics excellence, as well as community service and leadership, on a national level. There are three levels: state winner, finalist (top-10) and Woman of the Year.
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