Recent Kenyon College graduate and women’s swimming and diving student-athlete Emmie Mirus (Madison, WI/West) has been selected as the recipient of the 2022 North Coast Athletic Conference Pam Smith Award.
A four-year member of the Kenyon women’s swimming and diving team, Mirus ended her career on a high note, helping the Owls capture their 27th NCAC title and their 24th NCAA title. At the 2022 conference championship, she captured two individual titles and swam on four championship relay squads. On the national stage this season, she claimed gold in one individual event and broke three NCAA records with her teammates in three relays. Overall, she has captured five national event titles, three from relays and two from individual events, owns 22 career All-America awards and is a nine-time NCAC Championship event title winner.
The 2022 Kenyon senior captain award winner was honored with the “Shawn Kelly Memorial Award” in both 2019 and 2022 for her inspirational relay contributions, the “Stephen E. Bennett Memorial Award” in 2022 for most consistently supporting the team in devotion to training and competition and the “Most Inspiring Performance Award” after winning the 100 free and setting the varsity record in the 50 Free at the 2022 NCAA championship. Mirus was also earned the "Jess Willard Falkenstine Award" for leadership and integrity.
A double major in Sociology and Spanish, Mirus graduated magna cum laude from Kenyon with a 3.88 grade point average and earned “Distinction in the Senior Capstone” for her studies within the Department of Sociology and the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. This past spring, Mirus was recognized by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) as an Academic All-American for the second time in her career. She is a three-time NCAC Academic Honor Roll honoree, has been named to Kenyon's Merit List all eight semesters of her career and is a four-time College Swimming Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) All-American Scholar. In May 2022, she was selected as an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship winner.
Aside from success in the pool and in the classroom, Mirus most recently worked in the Knox County Recorder’s Office as an information audit intern and as a teaching assistant in the Kenyon Language Program. In 2020, she served as a youth worker through AmeriCorps in Madison, WI, planning and coordinating development programming for children during the first spring/summer of the COVID-19 pandemic. On campus, she served as a community advisor working with the Kenyon Office of Residential Life from 2018-20. In 2019, Mirus served as an undergraduate research scholar with the Madison Education Partnership, translating, transcribing, and analyzing data from qualitative interviews and over 2,000 surveys to assess opportunities for mitigating the impact of socioeconomic status on academic achievement. In 2017, she mentored, tutored and supported a local teenager in the Knox County Juvenile Probation program through the Kenyon Chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
Mirus was one of seven outstanding nominees considered by the selection committee. The other candidates included:
Giselle Bahena, Softball, Hiram College
Katherine Hiestand, Volleyball, Wittenberg University
Astrid Koek, Field Hockey, Ohio Wesleyan University
Casey McTague, Women’s Lacrosse, Denison University
Erin Pasch, Women’s Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field, DePauw University
Brooke Swain, Volleyball and Softball, The College of Wooster
The NCAC Woman of the Year Award commemorates former Wittenberg women’s basketball Head Coach and Associate Director of Athletics Pam Evans Smith, who had a profound impact upon the athletes she coached and the students she taught over an illustrious career that spanned more than two decades. She was the architect of the women’s basketball program with the most wins and highest winning percentage in NCAC history through 2007. A 1999 Wittenberg Athletics Hall of Honor inductee, Smith earned seven NCAC Coach of the Year awards and compiled a 401-170 record after taking the reins of a struggling program prior to the 1986-87 season. She led the Tigers to eight NCAA Division III tournament appearances, twelve 20-win seasons, and 11 NCAC regular-season championships.
As the NCAC winner, Mirus will be nominated, along with Hiram’s Giselle Bahena (Pomona, CA/Bishop Amat Memorial), for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award, one of the most prestigious honors the NCAA bestows. The award recognizes senior student-athletes who have distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, service, and leadership. Each NCAA conference, and independent institutions, can submit two nominations for the NCAA Woman of the Year award as long as one of the nominees is a student-athlete of color or is an international student-athlete. The Woman of the Year Selection Committee will name the Top 30 honorees, which include 10 women from each division. From the 30 honorees, the committee will then select and announce nine finalists, three from each NCAA division. The NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics will review the finalists and name the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year. For the first time in the award's history, the Top 30 honorees will be celebrated and the Woman of the Year will be named at the NCAA Convention. The 2023 Convention will take place in January in San Antonio.
NCAC Pam Smith Award Winners
2022 - Emmie Mirus, Kenyon
2021 - Megan Wong, Denison
2020 - Sydney Kopp, DePauw
2019 - Hannah Orbach-Mandel, Kenyon
2018 - Julia Wilson, Kenyon
2017 - Ellie Crawford, Kenyon
2016 - Haley Townsend, Kenyon
2015 - Maggie MacPhail, DePauw
2014 - Paige Gooch, DePauw
2013 - Leah Sack, Kenyon
2012 - Alisa Vereshchagin, Kenyon
2011 - Katie Navarre, Denison
2010 - Sarah Shinn, Ohio Wesleyan
2009 - Tracy Menzel, Kenyon
2008 - Erin Gorsich, Denison