Softball star up for national honor

June 30, 2009 by Sage Sammons 

Rebel nominated for NCAA Woman of the Year award

Thanks to her dedication on and off the field, one athlete is doing UNLV proud. The NCAA Woman of the Year award recognizes atheletes who are committed to athleticism, academic excellence and service – and Brittany Meade is just that.

Each conference in the NCAA submits nominees for the award to the national committee.

To qualify for the NCAA Woman of the Year award, a nominee must be a senior and show academic success and athletic excellence, service and leadership.

“I am completely honored just to be a nominee and to be in the pool with the 418 nominees,” Meade said.

Meade excelled as a softball player, student and model citizen in her tenure at UNLV. She was a four-time letter winner on the softball team. She graduated with a degree in kinesiology in May of 2008 and continued on to graduate school, focusing on sports education leadership.

She held a position on the UNLV Student Athlete Advisory Committee for five years, rising to become vice-president and then president of the committee. She was also the UNLV representative to the Mountain West Conference Student Advisory Committee for three years.

Most notably, Meade has taken part in service projects with Sunrise Children’s Cancer Hospital, Santa Clothes Project, Las Vegas Child Haven and Nevada Reading Week.

“That is the great part of it – being able to give back to people,” Meade said of her community service.

“My coaches from the beginning preached [community service] and they wanted that to be part of our college experience.”

Meade was joined by one other Mountain West nominee, Gail Tripp of New Mexico.

“To me, it’s really exciting that I was the person within our conference… that they choose me and one other young lady to move on. It is a really cool thing for that to happen,” Meade said.

As a player, Meade ended her tenure with a career batting average of .278, including eight home runs. She spent most of her time in the field at third base. In 2005, she was chosen for the All-MWC team and the Louisville Slugger/NFCA All-West Regions Second Team.

“The biggest thing I’m going to take back from being a UNLV Rebel is the pride,” Meade said. “Going through UNLV softball there was a lot of different things we went through and a lot of adversity. But walking away from that I grew as a person and now that I have stepped off the field it will all transfer over into my everyday life.”

The next step for the NCAA Woman of the Year award comes in August when the committee will choose the top 30. In September they will narrow that down to 10. The final awards ceremony will be held October 18 in Indianapolis, Ind.