WBB | Wedin Named Wooden Award Finalist
12/8/2022 1:03:00 PM | Women's Basketball
ATLANTA, Ga. – Athletes for a Better World has announced Saint Mary's Women's Basketball player, Taycee Wedin, has been named a collegiate finalist for the 2023 Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup.
The Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup is presented to six distinguished athletes from any sport – a male and female high school, intercollegiate, and professional athlete – who best display character, teamwork, and citizenship, the attributes Athletes for a Better World deems central to transforming individuals, sport, and society.
The award establishes the recipients as athletes of excellence both on and off the field, role models both as performers and persons, the most important and distinctive honor athletes can achieve.
Since 2016, ABW and The National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) have formed a partnership to recognize a male and female student-athlete as national scholarship winners and recipients of the Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup high school division. The NIAAA's competition includes an essay portion which asks the applicants to contemplate how the ABW Code for Living has been reflected in their life experiences.
Previous collegiate winners include Heisman winner Tim Tebow of Florida in 2009.
Wedin has been an active member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council and a captain of the SMC Women's Basketball Team in her time at Saint Mary's.
During the 2019-2020 season, the Gaels partnered with Team Impact to welcome a special seven-year-old girl as an honorary member of the Women's Basketball team. Team Impact matches children facing serious illness or disability with college sports teams, and Wedin was chosen as one of the leaders to facilitate the young girl's integration into the team.
Wedin coordinated regular interactions, play dates in the park, meet ups at home games, occasional team meals, and kept in regular contact with Ayla Zawadzki. Even during the pandemic of 2020-21, she organized socially distant meet ups and interactions.
That work inspired Wedin to apply for the Team Impact Fellowship program. This program was designed to build an on-campus presence to develop deeper relationships to add to the overall experience with Team Impact on our campus. She was chosen as one of only 60 Fellows across the country to participate in this program.
"I am honored to be Taycee Wedin's coach and thrilled she has been named a finalist for the Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup," Head Women's Basketball Coach Paul Thomas said. "Her spirit, her willingness to give back, and her dedication to women's basketball is unwavering."
Wedin has been a star on the court as well as off of it in her time as a Gael, etching her name into the SMC and WCC record books, along with her outstanding community service.
She has amassed over 340 three pointers while shooting over 40% from deep range in her career to date, shattering the Saint Mary's and West Coast Conference records for three pointers. Wedin topped the program career record of 268 threes vs. Santa Clara on February 3, 2022, and surpassed the WCC record of 298 threes on February 24, 2022 against Pacific.
The Milwaukie, Ore. native surpassed her own WCC mark of threes made in a season of 104 with 106 three pointers made in 2021-22, and became the 25th player in program history to surpass 1,000 points in her career in a win over Fresno State in 2021, as she currently has over 1,400 career points.
The Wooden Award College Cup winners will be announced in the first week of January and the award ceremony will be held April 27, 2023 at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.
The Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup is presented to six distinguished athletes from any sport – a male and female high school, intercollegiate, and professional athlete – who best display character, teamwork, and citizenship, the attributes Athletes for a Better World deems central to transforming individuals, sport, and society.
The award establishes the recipients as athletes of excellence both on and off the field, role models both as performers and persons, the most important and distinctive honor athletes can achieve.
Since 2016, ABW and The National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) have formed a partnership to recognize a male and female student-athlete as national scholarship winners and recipients of the Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup high school division. The NIAAA's competition includes an essay portion which asks the applicants to contemplate how the ABW Code for Living has been reflected in their life experiences.
Previous collegiate winners include Heisman winner Tim Tebow of Florida in 2009.
Wedin has been an active member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council and a captain of the SMC Women's Basketball Team in her time at Saint Mary's.
During the 2019-2020 season, the Gaels partnered with Team Impact to welcome a special seven-year-old girl as an honorary member of the Women's Basketball team. Team Impact matches children facing serious illness or disability with college sports teams, and Wedin was chosen as one of the leaders to facilitate the young girl's integration into the team.
Wedin coordinated regular interactions, play dates in the park, meet ups at home games, occasional team meals, and kept in regular contact with Ayla Zawadzki. Even during the pandemic of 2020-21, she organized socially distant meet ups and interactions.
That work inspired Wedin to apply for the Team Impact Fellowship program. This program was designed to build an on-campus presence to develop deeper relationships to add to the overall experience with Team Impact on our campus. She was chosen as one of only 60 Fellows across the country to participate in this program.
"I am honored to be Taycee Wedin's coach and thrilled she has been named a finalist for the Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup," Head Women's Basketball Coach Paul Thomas said. "Her spirit, her willingness to give back, and her dedication to women's basketball is unwavering."
Wedin has been a star on the court as well as off of it in her time as a Gael, etching her name into the SMC and WCC record books, along with her outstanding community service.
She has amassed over 340 three pointers while shooting over 40% from deep range in her career to date, shattering the Saint Mary's and West Coast Conference records for three pointers. Wedin topped the program career record of 268 threes vs. Santa Clara on February 3, 2022, and surpassed the WCC record of 298 threes on February 24, 2022 against Pacific.
The Milwaukie, Ore. native surpassed her own WCC mark of threes made in a season of 104 with 106 three pointers made in 2021-22, and became the 25th player in program history to surpass 1,000 points in her career in a win over Fresno State in 2021, as she currently has over 1,400 career points.
The Wooden Award College Cup winners will be announced in the first week of January and the award ceremony will be held April 27, 2023 at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.
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