INDIANAPOLIS – The NCAA and the Sun Belt Conference announced today that two student-athletes have been designated as the NCAA Woman of the Year honoree for the league as Little Rock’s Edina Begic and Troy’s Langley Vannoy were selected.
Begic and Vannoy are two of 147 student-athletes honored by conferences and independent schools across all NCAA divisions.
Vannoy served as the Troy Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) President this past year after holding leadership roles in the organization the previous two years. A native of Pensacola, Fla., Vannoy is scheduled to graduate Summa Cum Laude in December with a degree in physical and health education.
“Langley is the epitome of a student-athlete,” Troy Interim Athletic Director Sandy Atkins said. “She accomplished a lot during her career at Troy athletically and academically, but her legacy will be the positive impact she made on our University. Langley led by example and took great initiative to make Troy a better place for her fellow student-athletes and the rest of the Athletics Department.”
Vannoy was vital to the Troy women’s golf team winning back-to-back Sun Belt Conference championships in 2014 and 2015. An All-Sun Belt selection as a senior, Vannoy became the first recipient of the Troy University Trojan Way Leadership Award, which is the highest individual award presented by the Athletics Department. Vannoy played a key role in the creation of the Trojan Tribute Award Show, which debuted in 2015 to honor the accomplishments of Troy’s student-athletes on the field and in the classroom.
Begic won numerous awards and honors in her four-year career at Little Rock. Recently, she was named the Sun Belt’s Female Student-Athlete of the Year and signed to play professionally with Volley Soverato in Italy. Begic won the Sun Belt Conference's Offensive Player of the Year for three consecutive seasons while earning First Team honors. Begic was named to the AVCA All-Region Team and earned the status as an AVCA All-American Honorable Mention in 2013 and 2014.
“It’s honor for Edina to be chosen by the Sun Belt Conference,” Little Rock head coach Van Compton said. “She’s not only brought recognition to our university, she’s brought recognition to the Sun Belt Conference as well.”
In 2014, Begic was named the Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Week eight times, breaking her own NCAA and Sun Belt record of seven. Over her four-year career, Begic was named the Offensive Player of the Week on 18 different occasions. After her incredible performance at the Sun Belt Tournament in 2014, Begic was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
Begic holds the Little Rock record for most career kills at 2,189, fourth-most in Sun Belt history and second-most in the rally-scoring era. Begic ended her career as the NCAA Division I active career kills leader.
The Woman of the Year selection committee will next select the top 10 honorees in each division. These top 30 honorees will be announced in early September. The selection committee will then choose and announce the top nine finalists (three from each division) at the end of September. The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics will vote from amongst those nine finalists to determine the 2015 Woman of the Year and the top 30 honorees will be honored and the 2015 NCAA Woman of the Year will be named at the annual ceremony in Indianapolis on Oct. 18.