Danielle Williams, a senior from Johnson C. Smith University, was named the 2014 DII Woman of the Year nominee for track & field as announced by Executive Director Chris Voelz of THE Collegiate Women Sports Awards (CWSA) presented by Honda.

She is now designated one of 11 finalists for the prestigious DII Woman Athlete of the Year honor. This will be voted on at the end of the academic year by national balloting among 1,000 NCAA member schools as part of THE CWSA program, now in its 38th year.

Hailing from St. Andrews, Jamaica, Williams earned her second-straight U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Athlete of the Year honor. She earned eight Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) titles over the course of the 2013-14 indoor and outdoor track seasons and was named the CIAA Most Valuable Female Athlete. She won five NCAA Championship titles in both indoor and outdoor track and stayed undefeated by a collegiate in the 60 meter and 60 meter hurdles.

“Danielle is an extremely talented individual who epitomizes the term student-athlete,” said JCSU head track and field coach Lennox Graham. “She graduated with a 3.8 GPA (summa cum laude) and has excelled in track and field during her 4 years at JCSU. She was a great talent with high standards when recruited in the spring of 2010. She had an average freshman year and suffered an injury which hampered her in her sophomore season. The lessons learned from that set back in her second year served as a springboard for the rest of her collegiate career. She has been a pleasure to work with. Her passion for success and to be the best she can be in all areas of her life makes her a positive challenge to work with. She is fierce yet humble and those are qualities which I believe will propel her to be successful in her chosen field going forward.”

All sports nominees from DII and DIII become a finalist for the prestigious 2014 CWSA Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year in their respective divisions, presented in June. The sports nominees are recognized in 11 DII and DIII NCAA-sanctioned sports; cross country, basketball, field hockey, golf, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis, volleyball, and track & field.

THE Collegiate Women Sports Awards has honored the nation’s top NCAA women athletes for 37 years, recognizing superior athletic skills, leadership, academic excellence and eagerness to participate in community service. Since commencing its sponsorship in 1986, Honda has provided more than $2.8 million in institutional grants to the universities of the award winners and nominees to support women’s athletics programs at the institutions.