Aug. 1, 2011
NEW ORLEANS - Online fan voting is now underway for The Bowerman - the nation's top award for collegiate track & field athletes. Three men and three women are finalists for the award, and fans can help determine this year's winners.
Voting will be conducted at TheBowerman.org (www.thebowerman.org) through Tuesday, August 16, and its results will amount to one full vote in the overall balloting process.
Texas A&M senior sprinter Jessica Beard, who was honored last week as the female Big 12 Athlete of the Year, is one of the three women's finalist for the prestigious award. The other two finalist include LSU sprinter Kimberlyn Duncan and pole vaulter Tina Sutej of Arkansas.
Over 20,000 votes were cast in online fan voting in 2009 and over 27,000 selections were made in 2010.
Paper balloting by The Bowerman Advisory Board, past winners, selected media personnel, statisticians, and collegiate administrators, is also underway until later this month. An independent accounting firm will collect, tabulate, and certify final results and will keep the result secret until the envelope is opened in December.
The award, in its third year of existence, will be presented in a ceremony at the USTFCCCA Convention on December 14 at the JW Marriott Hill Country, San Antonio, Texas.
THE BOWERMAN FINALISTS, 2011 WOMEN
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Jessica Beard, Texas A&M Beard became the just the third female in NCAA Division I history, and first since 1999, to win both 400 national titles in the same year and run on both winning 4x400 relays at the NCAA Indoor and NCAA Outdoor Championships. Beard, a four-time Big 12 indoor 400-meter champ, recorded the world's fastest time over the 400-meter distance indoors with a 50.79 clocking to win the national crown. Outdoors, Beard clocked 51.10 for the NCAA win and split 49.13 for the Aggies as anchor of the NCAA-winning 4x400 relay.
Kimberlyn Duncan, LSU Duncan swept the NCAA's 200-meter titles in 2011 and, in both seasons, notched world-leading times. Duncan became the sixth woman in NCAA Division I history and the first since Auburn's Kerron Stewart in 2007 to sweep 200-meter titles in the same season. Indoors, Duncan won the SEC title in 22.78 for the world's best time of the season. Outdoors, Duncan was undefeated in the 200 meters and clocked a low-altitude all-time collegiate best (and the third-best overall) with a 22.24 run. Duncan was also the NCAA's 100-meter runner-up and anchored the Lady Tigers to an NCAA title in the 4x100 (42.64).
Tina Sutej, Arkansas Sutej set new collegiate records with the pole vault both indoors and outdoors in 2011. Indoors, Sutej would reach a best of 14-10¾ (4.54m) to set the new all-time collegiate best in winning the SEC crown and would go on to win the NCAA title. Outdoors, Sutej again won the SEC league title with a collegiate-record vault - a clearance of 15-1½ (4.61m). Overall, Sutej collected 13-straight meet victories before finishing runner-up at the NCAA outdoor meet where she tied the championship-meet record with Oregon's Melissa Gergel who took the crown on virtue of misses.
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THE BOWERMAN FINALISTS, 2011 MEN
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Jeshua Anderson, Washington State Anderson joined BYU's Ralph Mann (1969-70-71) and Iowa State's Danny Harris (1984-85-86) as the only three to win a third NCAA-championship title in the 400-meter hurdles. Anderson took the 2011 NCAA title in 48.56, over a half-second ahead of the rest of the field in the event's finals. Anderson earned the season's collegiate best and fifth-fastest all-time collegiate 400-hurdle time of 48.13 in winning a fourth-straight Pac-10 crown.
Ngoni Makusha, Florida State Makusha won NCAA outdoor titles in the 100 meters and long jump, joining Carl Lewis, Jesse Owens, and Michigan's DeHart Hubbard as only the fourth man in NCAA Division I history to claim such a double at a single championship. Makusha also claimed the NCAA long jump title during the indoor season, becoming the first since 2006 to sweep the event's two titles (Arturs Abolins, Nebraska). The Seminole notched a third NCAA outdoor championship title as second-leg of 4x100-meter relay. In addition, Makusha clocked 9.97 to win the ACC outdoor 100-meter crown, and he also swept league titles in the long jump. Makusha's run of 9.89 in the NCAA's 100-meter final broke the 1996 collegiate- and championship-meet record of 9.92 set by UCLA's Ato Bolden, is the Zimbabwean national record, and places Makusha is the world's top six in the event this year. In the long jump, Makusha's NCAA-winning mark of 27-6¾ (8.40m) is also a new Zimbabwean national record and places Makusha as the world's No. 2 long jumper so far in 2011.
Christian Taylor, Florida Taylor was the winner of the NCAA's outdoor triple jump title with an all-time, all-conditions collegiate best mark of 58-4¾ (17.80m). The wind-aided title clincher came on the final attempt of a back-and-forth battle with teammate Will Claye. In the same competition, Taylor marked a wind-legal jump of 57-1 (17.40m) in the fourth round to claim the season's collegiate best mark, current American-leading mark, and performance that places the Gator in the world's top six so far in 2011. Taylor also finished second at the NCAA Championships indoors to Claye in the triple jump and qualified for both NCAA meets in the long jump. With Florida's 4x100- and 4x400-meter relay teams, Taylor qualified for the national finals in both events outdoors. At the Penn Relays, Florida's 4x100 squad finished second in the Championship of America race.