Recent Kenyon College graduate Leah Sack (Wynnewood, PA/Lower Merion)
has been selected as the recipient of the 2013 North Coast Athletic
Conference Pam Smith Award.
Sack, who was a four-year member of the Ladies' women's lacrosse
team, served as the team captain in both her junior and senior
seasons. A four-time All-NCAC selection, she was named the 2013
NCAC Women's Lacrosse Offensive Player of the Year after leading
the league with 75 assists and netting 18 goals to finish second in
the NCAC with 93 points. Sack, who helped guide the Ladies to their
first conference championship in program history in 2013, is now
the NCAC and Kenyon record-holder in three separate assist
categories, including assists in a season (75), assists in a career
(176) and assists in a game (9). Sack was also a member of the only
NCAC women's lacrosse team to win an NCAA tournament game when the
Ladies knocked off conference-foe Wooster, 19-14, in the
opening-round of the 2010 NCAA Division III Women's Lacrosse
Tournament. In addition, Sack saw her collegiate lacrosse career
come to a close by participating in the 2013 Intercollegiate
Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA) North-South All-Star
Game.
In the classroom, she graduated cum laude with a 3.65
grade-point-average as an honors psychology major. Sack, who earned
Kenyon's highest honors in as a psychology student, was a member of
a pair of psychology honors societies, including Sigma Xi and Psi
Chi. Following voting from members of the College Sports
Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), Sack became the first KC
women's lacrosse player to be named to the Capital One Academic
All-America At-Large Team. Sack, who was also a four-year member on
Kenyon's Merit List, was also the recipient of Kenyon's Elissa B.
Carleton Scholarship.
In addition to her many athletic and academic accomplishments, Sack
also devoted a great deal of her time to community service,
highlighted by a service trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2011,
where she helped to promote the education and awareness of HIV/AIDS
for young immigrant women in the extremely poverty stricken
neighborhood of Villa 31. She also volunteered at the New
Directions Domestic Abuse Shelter of Knox County where she
supervised and counseled children while their mothers participated
in support groups at the shelter. In addition to her volunteer
duties at the shelter, Sack also coordinated fundraising efforts to
successfully raise money for the shelter's annual benefit dinner.
In addition, she helped expose girls of the greater Knox County
area to sports which they were unfamiliar with by running mini
lacrosse clinics to promote the mission of the National Association
for Girls and Women in Sport.
Sack was one of five outstanding nominees considered by the
selection committee. The candidates were:
The NCAC Woman of the Year Award commemorates former Wittenberg
women’s basketball Head Coach and Associate Director of
Athletics Pam 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, Sack will be nominated, along with
Allegheny's Daryl Ford, 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
nominate one distinguished female student-athlete for the NCAA
Woman of the Year Award. The NCAA Committee on Women’s
Athletics will meet in August to select the top 10 winners in each
division. In September, the selection committee will then evaluate
the 30 honorees and choose the top three in each division. Finally,
the members of the CWA will vote from among the top nine finalists
to determine the Woman of the Year. The top 10 honorees and the
nine finalists from Divisions I, II and III will be honored and the
2013 NCAA Woman of the Year winner announced at a dinner in
Indianapolis October 20, 2013.