BATON ROUGE – Former Lady Tiger sprint star Kimberlyn Duncan has been honored for the second time in her career as the female recipient of the James J. Corbett Award as the top amateur athlete in the state of Louisiana that is selected each year by the Allstate Sugar Bowl and the Greater New Orleans Sports Selection Committee.
Duncan is only the fifth individual – male and female – to win the Corbett Award on more than one occasion as she was also honored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl following the 2010-11 season.
She joins a distinguished list of multiple winners of the Corbett Award that also includes former LSU basketball stars Pete Maravich (1968, 1969) and Shaquille O’Neal (1991, 1992), former Lady Tiger basketball standout Seimone Augustus (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005) and former Southern University hurdler Rodney Milburn (1971, 1973).
Duncan capped her historic career as one of the all-time great sprinters in collegiate track and field by sweeping NCAA Indoor and NCAA Outdoor championships in the 200-meter dash for the third year in a row.
Duncan is the only sprinter in collegiate history – male or female – to sweep NCAA Indoor and NCAA Outdoor titles in the 200 meters in three-straight seasons with her incredible run from 2011-13. That effort includes matching the fastest 200 meters under all conditions in collegiate history with her winning wind-aided race of 22.04 seconds in the national final at the 2013 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships held at Oregon’s Hayward Field to tie LSU great Dawn Sowell’s 24-year-old collegiate record of 22.04 set during the 1989 season.
Not only that, but Duncan also claimed the NCAA Outdoor bronze medal in the 100-meter dash after scoring the silver medal in the event as a sophomore in 2011 and as a junior in 2012.
In addition, Duncan swept SEC Indoor and SEC Outdoor titles in the 200 meters for the third year in a row while also defending her SEC Outdoor gold medal in the 100 meters and claiming the SEC Indoor crown in the 60 meters for the first time in her collegiate career. She claimed the SEC’s Cliff Harper Trophy indoors and Commissioner’s Trophy outdoors as the top individual point scorer at the SEC Championships.
In her four season with the Lady Tigers, Duncan tied LSU’s program record with seven NCAA event titles and 12 SEC event titles while also earning 14 All-America honors as one of the nation’s dominant sprinters.
In addition to winning the James J. Corbett Award, Duncan also repeated as the winner of the Honda Sports Award for collegiate track and field and the SEC Women’s Outdoor Runner of the Year award during 2013.
After wrapping up her collegiate career at the NCAA Championships, Duncan took the world by storm in a big way by capturing the women’s 200-meter title ahead of reigning Olympic gold medalist Allyson Felix with a career-best wind-aided run of 21.80 in the final at the 2013 USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships held in Des Moines, Iowa.
A native of Katy Texas, Duncan is now set to represent the United States on the international stage for the first time in her career as she is surely a medal contender in the women’s 200-meter dash as she competes at the 2013 IAAF World Championships in Athletics beginning this weekend in Moscow, Russia. The first round of the women’s 200 meters will run on Thursday of next week.
Duncan was named the female winner of the James J. Corbett Award for the 2012-13 season just one day after LSU’s All-American pitcher Aaron Nola was announced as the men’s recipient on Wednesday.
According to the official press release distributed by the Allstate Sugar Bowl, the Corbett Award was created in 1967 in honor of the late James J. Corbett to commemorate his contribution to intercollegiate athletics, as well as to the Sugar Bowl. The award is presented annually to the most outstanding amateur male and female athletes in the state of Louisiana.
The award recipients are selected each year by members of the New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame Committee after receiving nominations by the state’s sportswriters, sportscasters and sports information directors.
Since its inception in 1967, Corbett Award winners include 16 NFL players, seven Major League Baseball players, four NBA players (including two Hall of Famers), eight Olympians (including seven gold medal winners), a trio of WNBA players and one PGA Tour standout.