Rice University’s Forbes Recognized as Top 30 NCAA Woman of the Year Honoree by Forbes
Already one of the most decorated Rice women’s cross country and track and field athletes of all time, Grace Forbes was chosen as one of the Top 30 honorees for the 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year Award, the organization announced on Monday.
Forbes is the third Rice track and field athlete and fourth Owl to advance to the Top 30 since the award was established in 1991. She joins Erica Ogwumike (WBB, 2020) and track and field greats Becky Wade (2012) and Lennie Waite (2009).
Selected from a record-breaking 619 nominees submitted by member schools — a group that was then narrowed to 164 nominees at the conference level — the Top 30 honorees include 10 from each of the three NCAA divisions. Each honoree has demonstrated excellence in academics, athletics, community service and leadership.
The selection committee will determine three honorees from each NCAA division, for a total of nine finalists. From those finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics will choose the 2023 NCAA Woman of the Year. The nine finalists will be announced at a later time.
“Grace is beyond deserving of this award. She exhibits the best possible traits academically, athletically, leadership-wise and is the best possible teammate. In addition to exhibiting all of these qualities, she continues to fight and overcome unique adversity daily,” said women’s track and field head coach Jim Bevan. “In all areas, she is the best of the best and I feel thankful and honored to have worked with her for the last four years.”
Forbes holds five school records for track and field with the mile, 3000-meter and 5000-meter in indoor track, and the 1500-meter and 10,000-meter in outdoor track. Forbes placed second in the 10,000 meters at the 2022 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships after winning the event at the NCAA Outdoor West Prelims in 2021 and 2022. She is also a five-time NCAA All-American.
The 12-time Conference USA champion, Forbes was named the 2020 and 2021 USTFCCCA Cross Country South-Central Athlete of the Year. She was the race champion at the 2021 NCAA Division I South Central Region Cross Country Championships.
Recently, Forbes was named Rice’s 2023 Joyce Pounds Hardy Award winner, given to Rice’s most outstanding female athlete. She was also the 2022 Michael L. Slive Conference USA Female Athlete of the Year, the second Rice female athlete to win the award (Ogwumike 2019 and 2020). She was also recognized as the C-USA Female Track Athlete of the Year in 2021 and 2022 and named the Female Cross Country Athlete of the Year in 2021.
Forbes graduated with a 3.90 in exercise physiology and sports medicine. She’s a four-time Conference USA Honor Roll and Academic Medal honoree and a six-time USTFCCCA All-Academic honoree. Forbes is also a three-time C-USA Scholar Athlete of the Year.
Forbes served on the campus Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. In addition to coaching and mentoring collegiate and youth cross country runners, she volunteered with Healing the Children in a surgical clinic in Ecuador in 2022 and with the Puentes de Salud organization, which provides free health care to the underserved Latinx community in Philadelphia. In May 2020, Forbes raised $2,400 for the Black Lives Matter Global Network through a personal daylong running campaign.