Lisa Koll (Iowa State cross country; track and field) and Ndamukong Suh (Nebraska football) have been named 2009-10 Big 12 Conference Athletes of the Year, the league office announced.
Nominees are submitted by each Big 12 institution and selected, based on athletic performance, academic achievement and citizenship, by a media panel as well as fan voting conducted on Big12Sports.com.
Koll won the Honda Award as nation’s top track and field athlete and is one of three finalists nationally for the Broderick Award honoring the premier female student-athlete. The senior distance runner is a four-time NCAA champion with three of those titles coming in 2009-10 (indoor 5,000-meters, outdoor 5,000-meters and 10,000-meters). She also earned All-America honors in cross country with a 12th-place national finish. On March 26, 2010, Koll set the all-time collegiate record in the 10,000 meters (31:18.07), ranking her as the sixth-fastest performer in U.S. History. She was the Most Outstanding Performer at the Big 12 indoor and outdoor championships after winning the 5,000- and 3,000-meter runs during indoors and capturing the 5,000 and 10,000-meter titles at the outdoor meet. Koll’s 10,000 meter win marked the first time in Conference history that an athlete had won the same event four times. She placed second at the 2010 USA Track and Field Championships in the same event. Koll is the Big 12 Championship record-holder in the 5,000 meters (indoors and outdoors) and the 3,000 meters indoors. During her collegiate career, Koll earned All-America honors 11 times and won nine Big 12 titles.
The Fort Dodge, Iowa-native graduated summa cum laude in three years with a bachelor’s degree in biology. Koll is in her second year of veterinary medicine school at ISU. She is a four-time Academic All-American and seven-time first team Academic All-Big 12 honoree. Her other academic recognition includes Phi Beta Kappa (2007-08), NCAA CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year (2009) and USTFCCAA Scholar-Athlete of the Year (2008 and 2010). She earned the top two percent award in the ISU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (2006, 2007, 2008) and was a member of Chi Alpha Sigma.
Koll was also active in the community as she visited elementary schools to interact with students, was a volunteer in the Iowa State Wildlife Clinic and worked with the Feral Cat Alliance. She participated in the Des Moines Relay for Life and delivered Thanksgiving food baskets to underprivileged families.
