Marquette volleyball alumna Allie Barber has been nominated for the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year Award. She is one of two players in the BIG EAST, along with University of Connecticut field hockey’s Svea Boker, to be chosen for this award.
The NCAA has honored female athletes every year since 1991 through the Woman of the Year Award, which recognizes “the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of graduating female college athletes from all three divisions.”
Barber was a standout in the volleyball program during her four years as a Golden Eagle as a two-time BIG EAST Player of the Year and Marquette’s all-time kills leader.
The Cedarburg, Wisconsin native also made Marquette history by becoming the first three-time AVCA All-American. In the 2018 season, she was a second team selection and was the only player to receive First Team Senior CLASS Award accolades.
Besides being a force on the court, Barber also spent time contributing to the community and excelling academically. She graduated in spring 2020 with a 3.98 GPA in biomedical sciences and received a score in the 98th percentile for the Medical College Admission Test. This year she also won the Marquette President’s Award and earned the Marquette Excellence in Athletics Award.
She was also very involved in community events. In 2018 she traveled to Costa Rica to build multi-purpose courts for young athletes in the Courts for Kids student-athlete service trip.
The 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year will be chosen by the selection committee, which is made up of representatives from NCAA members. The committee chose 10 honorees from each division, which makes up the Top 30, and from there will pick the top three from each division to represent the nine finalists. The finalists will be announced in September and the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics will determine the player for Woman of the Year. She will be named later this fall.
This story was written by Molly Gretzlock. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @mollygretzlock.
