All-American Simone Childs-Walker is the third member of Carleton's women's track & field team to be awarded the NCAA Postgrad Scholarship

NORTHFIELD, Minn. – Recent Carleton College graduate and the Knights’ only two-time first-team Academic All-American, Simone Childs-Walker ’12 (Seattle, Wash./Lakeside) received one of the NCAA’s top honors as she was awarded a NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. She is one of 58 scholarship winners nationwide to receive the $7,500 award, with 29 female and 29 male student-athletes from a spring sport each securing a grant for post-graduate studies.

Childs-Walker, an 11-time All-American in cross country and track and field, becomes the 33rd Knight to receive this prestigious award, with 16 of those coming over the last decade (SEE CHART AT BOTTOM OF RELEASE). She is the third member of the women’s cross country and/or track & field program to be recognized, joining former Knights Anna Prineas (1989) and Kelly Lovett  (2011).

The NCAA awarded the one-time, non-renewable grants to the 58 student-athletes in all three NCAA divisions who participated in spring sports this academic year. These sports include: baseball, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s lacrosse, women’s rowing, women’s sand volleyball, softball, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s outdoor track & field, men’s volleyball, and women’s water polo.

Of the 29 female recipients this year from spring sports, only seven attended Division III institutions.

Childs-Walker is the only MIAC student-athlete to earn the NCAA postgraduate honor for the spring sports this year. Four conference competitors received the award during the fall: Bethel University volleyball player Nicole Wriedt; University of St. Thomas football player Daniel Chapman; and a pair of honorees from Gustavus Adolphus College, soccer player Benjamin Ceder and football player Brad Kruckeberg.

The NCAA awards up to 174 postgraduate scholarships annually—87 for men and 87 for women—with one third of those for each the fall, winter, and spring sports seasons. The scholarships are awarded to student-athletes who excel academically and athletically and who are in their final year of intercollegiate athletics competition. The grants can be used for part-time or full-time postgraduate study at a university or professional school.

The NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship was created in 1964 to promote and encourage postgraduate education by rewarding the Association's most accomplished student-athletes through their participation in NCAA championship and/or emerging sports. Athletics and academic achievements, as well as campus involvement, community service, volunteer activities and demonstrated leadership, are evaluated. An equitable approach is employed in reviewing each applicant's nomination form to provide opportunity to all student-athlete nominees to receive the postgraduate award, regardless of sport, division, gender or race. In maintaining the highest broad-based standards in the selection process, the program aims to reward those individuals whose dedication and effort are reflective of those characteristics necessary to succeed and thrive through postgraduate study in an accredited graduate degree program.

Carleton College NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Winners