BATON ROUGE — Fans are encouraged to vote now for former Lady Tigers track and field standouts Dawn Sowell and Sheila Echols as two of the NCAA’s most outstanding student-athletes in women’s outdoor track and field history.
The fan poll, which will name the top-two Most Outstanding Student-Athletes in NCAA Division I, II and III, is part of the NCAA’s 25th anniversary celebration of women’s championships.
To vote and view a list of nominees and their championship accolades, fans can go online and vote now.
Voting will remain open until April 1.
Each of the 41 candidates has won a minimum of three NCAA championships in outdoor track and field and/or currently holds a NCAA championship record.
Sowell, a six-time All-American and six-time NCAA champion in just one season with the Lady Tigers, swept the NCAA’s short sprint titles during the 1989 outdoor season, winning both the 100 meters and 200 meters, while also helping the Lady Tigers to gold in the 4×100-meter relay.
Sowell still holds the NCAA records in both the 100 and 200 meters with times of 10.78 and 22.04, respectively. In addition, she ran the third leg on LSU’s 4×100 relay team that set the collegiate record in the event with a time of 42.50 seconds.
Echols, a seven-time All-American and three-time national champion while competing for the Lady Tigers, won the 1987 outdoor national title in the long jump with a NCAA record leap of 22-9 1/4. She also ran a leg on LSU’s 1985 national champion 4×100-meter relay team.