University of Richmond Athletics
Kobelja Among NCAA Woman of the Year Nominees
06/18/2014 | Women's Swimming & Diving
Richmond Spiders 2014 graduate Mali Kobelja (Fort Wayne, Ind.) has been selected as one of the two nominees for the 2013-14 NCAA Woman of the Year award by the Atlantic 10 Confeence office, officials announced today. She was among the original 205 Division I nominees, nine from A-10 institutions, for the national award, to be bestowed by the national organization in October.
Kobelja earned her third-straight Most Outstanding Swimmer Award at the A-10 Championships, a first for a female swimmer in league history. In four years as a collegiate swimmer, she won 11 individual gold medals and one silver in 12 events in her career at the league championship meet. She was also part of a perfect 16-for-16 in team relay events in four years, pushing her gold medal count to 27 in four seasons. Kobelja's name is in the A-10 record books 15 times for the fastest times in four relays: 200 IM, 200 free, 400 IM and 400 free relays (conference, championship meet and pool records at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio), as well as individually in the 200 IM (A-10 Meet and pool records) and the 400 IM (championship meet record). She was also the league's Most Outstanding Rookie Swimmer in 2011.
She capped off her career by winning two individual golds and a silver, swimming on four of Richmond's five relay wins in the 2014 Championships to help the program capture its fourth-straight league championship and 12th in the past 13 seasons.
She was the 2012 Atlantic 10 Scholar Athlete of the Year award winner, the first recipient in UR history and the first A-10 swimmer to win the award. She was recently awarded the Leslie Sessoms Booker Award, one of the four individual awards given by Westhampton College, the women's college within the coeducational University of Richmond. Kobelja was a Phi Beta Kappa Society member and a Summa Cum Laude graduate, receiving her B.S in biology degree in May (with a cumulative 3.84 grade point average). She earned her third Academic All-Conference team, the most a student-athlete can earn in the league.
During her time at Richmond away from the pool and classroom, she served as a Spanish translator at the YMCA, transferring flyers from Spanish to English. Kobelja collaborated with guidance counselors at Richmond's John Marshall High School for the Coaches in the Classroom program, providing resources for athletes to understand college academics and athletics. A volunteer at Metro Richmond Young Life, Kobelja prepared and taught Bible-based lessons for students and counseled local high school girls in individual and group settings. A 2012 Olympic Trials Qualifier, she earned A-10 Performer of the Week honors 13 times in her career.
Member schools nominate and conferences select up to two candidates worthy of this national honor. The selection committee will select 10 honorees from Division I and then pare down the list to three finalists before selecting the winner, who will be announced on Sunday, October 19. The NCAA will honor 10 finalists from each of its three divisions at the ceremony.
Players Mentioned
