The remarkable career of Colleen Quigley came to a close with a coveted NCAA Championships in June on the heels of earning her dietetics degree with honors in May. The accolades, however, continue to come in for one of the most decorated distance runners and well-rounded student-athletes in Florida State University history.
On Thursday, Quigley was named one of the Top 30 honorees for the 2015 NCAA Woman of the Year Award. The group will be honored on Oct. 18 at a banquet in Indianapolis, where the overall winner will be announced.
One of 10 NCAA Division I athletes selected – the honorees include 10 athletes from each of the three NCAA divisions – Quigley is the Seminoles’ third Top 30 honoree in the 25-year history of the award, joining Kandia Batchelor (2008) and Amanda Winslow (2013).
The St. Louis, Mo. native was selected from a record 480 school nominees, which were trimmed to 147 in July.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Quigley said of the honor, just days after returning from Beijing, China where she placed 12th in the steeplechase finals at the IAAF World Championships. “When I first heard of the award I really didn’t know what it was. I didn’t realize it was all of the NCAA sports for women put together, with Division I, Division II and Division III. I remember when Amanda Winslow had been selected from FSU my sophomore year and it sounded like a cool thing.
“It’s really an honor. I’m excited to go in October to Indianapolis when they bring all the award winners together. That’s going to be really fun.”
A nine-time All-American between cross country and track & field for the Seminoles, Quigley’s accomplishments stack up nicely among the Top 30 honorees. She is a two-time Academic All-American, was selected as the USTFCCCA 2015 Outdoor Track & Field Scholar Athlete of the Year and one of just two athletes ever earn ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors in cross country, indoor and outdoor track & field, graduating from FSU with a 3.87 grade point average.
In addition to her athletic and academic prowess, Quigley was a two-year member of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and active in the Garnet and Gold Key Leadership Honorarium, the Women in Leadership Development (WILD) and the Garnet and Gold Scholar Society, among many others. She captained the Florida State cross country team for two years and the track & field team during the 2014 ACC Triple Crown-winning season.
In addition to her athletic and academic prowess, Quigley was a two-year member of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and active in the Garnet and Gold Key Leadership Honorarium, the Women in Leadership Development (WILD) and the Garnet and Gold Scholar Society, among many others. She captained the Florida State cross country team for two years and the track & field team during the 2014 ACC Triple Crown-winning season.
Athletically, this year’s Top 30 honorees won a combined 27 NCAA Championships, represented their countries internationally 35 times and accounted for 114 All-American honors. They also produced 14,000 hours of community service. Of the group, 19 were members of their campus Student Athlete Advisory Committee and 22 were team captains. Collectively the group boasts a 3.81 GPA and claimed 15 Academic All-American honors.
Athletically, this year’s Top 30 honorees won a combined 27 NCAA Championships, represented their countries internationally 35 times and accounted for 114 All-American honors. They also produced 14,000 hours of community service. Of the group, 19 were members of their campus Student Athlete Advisory Committee and 22 were team captains. Collectively the group boasts a 3.81 GPA and claimed 15 Academic All-American honors.
“This year marks the 25thcelebration of the Woman of the year program, and these women continue the tradition of being the best and brightest in college sports,” said Shantey Hill, chair of the selection committee and assistant vice president and senior director of athletics of St. Joseph’s College. “This year’s top 30 honorees are outstanding examples of women competing in sports at every level, and we are confident that they will continue to make a difference in the world for many years to come.”
Form the start, Quigley was determined to make the most of her Florida State University experience to better prepare her for the future.
“I just wanted to take all of the opportunities I could and use them to my advantage and not leave any stone unturned,” Quigley said of her FSU experience. “I wanted to leave and be able to look back on all of those amazing things I was actually a part of: the clubs I was in; the people I got to meet through Garnet and Gold Key; SAAC. The things I got to do through them was so fun it changed my experience. It wouldn’t have been the same thing if I had just been on the team. That would have been fun too, but it was so much more having done it the way I did it. I have so many fond memories to look back on.”
Not surprisingly, Quigley scores high marks in the four pillars – Academics, Athletics, Service and Leadership – which embody the NCAA Woman of the Year candidates.
To that end, she offered her most memorable experiences as a Seminole as it pertains to each of the four pillars.
ACADEMICS
“My sophomore year I took Honors Latin American History with Dr. [Robinson] Herrera and that guy was so tough. I took the class with Jensen [Swopes, a former teammate]. We were trying to graduate with honors and we signed up for this class. I think I signed up for it because I was interested in it from taking Spanish. Jensen just got on board with me. The poor girl. I convinced her to take this class with me. We struggled so much. The reading was so intense and so difficult. Then we would have these class discussions about it and he would show us pictures. He didn’t have any notes and would just talk and we would try to write down everything he said…
“I think I got a 66 on the first test. It was horrible. We had to write these papers. The only reason I got a good grade in his class was we were supposed to write this huge mid-term paper and I went to his office like three times to ask him about my paper and have him read what I had written so far. He approved my idea, proofread it halfway through and was giving me tips on how to make it better. I ended up getting the highest grade on the mid-term paper and pulled it out, somehow, on the final. I ended up getting an A in the class and I have no idea how that actually happened to me.“That was the hardest class I had taken at FSU and to come out with an A. I was so proud that I stuck with it. We cried studying for the final. When I got out of the final I was so exhausted. My body was mentally and physically exhausted. That class completely took everything out of me. Dr. Herrera, I think, was really proud of me that I pulled it out after doing so horribly in the beginning. That was probably my toughest, proudest academic moment.”
ATHLETICS
“There are a lot of things I will remember, but the thing that meant the very most to me – and I was very emotional when it happened – was NCAA’s this year and finally being an NCAA champion. Coach [Karen] Harvey told me my freshman year that I could be an NCAA champion. To me that was the epitome of my whole collegiate career. ‘You could be an NCAA champion!’ That is it. That was the best. I always thought if I came away with that it would make my career at FSU; the perfect cap on it.
“When I realized in the race that I was going to win, it was so emotional. The moment I crossed the line I collapsed and was crying. I could barely do an interview, because I was so caught up in the whole moment. It was exactly how I wanted to end my career as a Seminole. It was such a perfect moment.”
SERVICE
“I took an idea of something [Soles4Souls] that people before me had done. We had done it as just a track team and I thought, ‘You know what, I think this could work on a bigger scale. We should do this with the entire athletic department.’ No one else was really that psyched about it…
“I said, ‘Don’t even worry about it. I’m just going to take care of it.’ We ended up getting all these boxes and shoes started coming in. It ended up working out really well and I was pumped with how many shoes everyone was donating. We shipped them off. I had all those shoes in my living room for about a month. It was pretty stinky up there. My roommates probably hated it. That was really fun.”
LEADERSHIP
“I actually learned a lot about myself as a leader at FSU, and not always in a good way. I had to step down from being a captain this (past) spring because it just wasn’t working. What I was doing with the girls, they weren’t responding to…I called coach Harvey over the break to say, ‘I don’t think I could do it anymore. It’s just stressing me out. It’s my senior spring, I want to focus on being an NCAA champion and I’m not helping the girls.’
“The biggest lesson I learned there was knowing when enough is enough. I wasn’t giving them what they needed. I talked to [Harvey] and said Linden [Hall] needs to do this by herself. She’ll do a great job with it and doesn’t need my help. It actually worked out so much better for me to step back and take a back seat – to still be there if anyone needed me – but just not having to organize things, or trying to get people to do what they needed to do. Giving the responsibility to someone else, and knowing when to do that, was really hard. Then I had more time to focus on other things. I was in Garnet and Gold Key as the director of membership. I wasn’t really giving that as much time as I should have, so I used that time in different ways…
“I learned a lot about myself and dealing with other people; how I still need to work on that part of myself. It was a good way to learn that with this group of girls. We still love each other and they will be the ones to tell me when I’m messing up or need to change, or what I’m doing isn’t working for them. That’s the best way, to have it come from people that you love. It was a really good lesson for me, but also hard at the same time.”