MIDDLEBURY — Maddie Pronovost, a 2017 Middlebury College graduate and captain of the Panther track and field team last year, has been given the 2016-17 NCAA Division III Female Student-Athlete Sportsmanship Award.
The honor comes after the Brookline, Mass., resident was selected as one of the Top 30 honorees (10 from each NCAA division) out of a record 543 nominees for the NCAA Woman of the Year award.
The award recognizes the athletes who exemplify sportsmanship, one of the core principles of the NCAA. Pronovost will receive the honor on Friday, Nov. 17, during the season-opening men’s basketball game in Pepin Gymnasium.
Martin Beatty, Middlebury’s track and field coach, said Pronovost’s past has helped build her character.
“Being well aware of her history of being born in China and adopted by a woman here in the United States, Maddie knows that all in life is precious, including her competitors,” Beatty noted. “I’ve had athletes with good sportsmanship, but Maddie took it to the next level.”?
In July, NESCAC administrators nominated Pronovost, who graduated cum laude with a degree in neuroscience, for the award from among eight candidates. She is the third Middlebury woman since 2012 to be selected in the final 30 student-athletes for the Woman of the Year honor.
Pronovost volunteered at the Champlain Valley Head Start program, helping preschool children develop proficiency in language and mathematics, and volunteered in the post-acute care unit at Porter Medical Center, where she helped therapists with rehabilitation exercises for elderly patients following surgery and also assisted in surgeries and post-operative care. She also worked on a Habitat for Humanity project in Virginia.
On campus she mentored incoming first-year students and served as the co-chair of the Middlebury Class of 2017 Senior Committee, where she helped raise over $40,000 for a memorial scholarship fund created in honor of two class of 2017 members who passed away during the past four years.
Pronovost served as a captain during the indoor and outdoor track & field seasons and achieved All-American status at the NCAA Division III indoor championships in March with a third-place finish in the pentathlon. She established the school pentathlon record with 3,408 points in February, and in May won the D-III New England heptathlon title with a school-record 4,419 points.
Pronovost also earned All-NESCAC honors in the 100-meter hurdles this past spring, was an All-New England selection four times in the heptathlon, three times in the pentathlon and once in the 60-meter hurdles.