NEW YORK — Ann Meyers Drysdale felt nostalgic spending the day with so many other Honda Cup award winners, including fellow UCLA Bruins great Jackie Joyner-Kersee.<\/p>\n
The award, given annually to the top female college athlete, was celebrating its 50th annivesary Monday. The best player in every sport is invited to the ceremony each year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you’re a young college athlete, you don\u2019t understand the importance of it,\u201d said Meyers Drysdale, who starred in basketball at UCLA and won the award in its second year in 1978. \u201cThere\u2019s so many basketball players, which is, you know, pretty exciting. But just the great athletes from all the different sports, I think that\u2019s what I\u2019m appreciative of the Honda Awards, that they recognize so many athletes from so many different sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
Out of all the individual sport winners, an overall Athlete of the Year is chosen to receive the Honda Cup. In addition to athletic performance, the award honors college athletes for their leadership, academics and community service.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great that it honors more than just what is done on the court or field,\u201d said Jen Rizzotti, who won the award in 1996 after a successful basketball career at UConn. \u201cThey make sure that they\u2019re well-rounded and have a balanced portfolio. They give back in the community, they\u2019re great in the classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Delta State basketball great Lusia Harris won the first Honda Cup in 1977. There have been 18 other basketball players crowned as the top athlete, more than any other sport. Maya Moore and Caitlin Clark each won twice. UCLA softball great Rachel Garcia and Florida swimmer Tracy Caulkins are the only other athletes to win twice.<\/p>\n
Tennessee star Chamique Holdsclaw won the award in 1998. She loved the chance to get to know so many athletes from other sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt exposed me to different things and to people playing different sports,\u201d Holdsclaw said. \u201cI was learning about things like women’s lacrosse and growing up in New York City and playing at Tennessee we didn’t have that. I think it was great that the award recognized greatness in every sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
The award ceremony has come a long way from the first in 1977. Missy Marlowe won the Honda Cup in 1992 after a successful gymnastics career at Utah. That came after competing in the Olympics in 1988. Marlowe remembered receiving the Honda Cup at an NCAA convention back in the day. <\/p>\n
After a 12-year run in Los Angeles, the award ceremony moved to New York in 2024 and has been there ever since.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s inspiring. It\u2019s a really neat break from reality to remember what we used to do a long time ago,\u201d Marlowe said. \u201cTo see this this tradition continue for 50 years is incredible because it\u2019s easy to start something and have it go for a while and then kind of die off. So the determination and the work that\u2019s gone into keeping this so prevalent for 50 years, and in fact, gain in importance, is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Julie Shea was the first non-basketball winner of the Honda Cup after a stellar track career at N.C. State. She was honored to be back and see all the positive changes for women\u2019s athletics with many players making money for their name, image and likeness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sold programs and popcorn and peanuts at the football games,\u201d Shea recalled. \u201cI\u2019m happy for them. But I\u2019m like, hey, you know, I just was born in the wrong era.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shea was one of 20 former winners who took part in the ceremony in New York on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s great about the Honda Cup and what college women\u2019s sports is all about is bringing people together,\u201d Joyner said. \u201cBeing able to see some of the people winning and them seeing us, not even born when we were doing what we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joyner-Kersee won the award in 1985. She was an inspiration to Stanford volleyball player Ogonna Nnamani (2005). Nnamani, who suffered from asthma when she was an athlete, saw Joyner-Kersee succeed in the Olympics while also being afflicted with the same thing. Nnamani said that if Joyner-Kersee could do it she could too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to tell her that she inspired me because of what she was able to do,\u201d said Nnamani, who is a doctor now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — Ann Meyers Drysdale felt nostalgic spending the day with so many other Honda Cup award…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4567,3361,11496,9,24,55,54,56,319,14269,16355],"class_list":["post-307318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-sports","tag-track-and-field","tag-womens-college-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}