Kayla Hoffman, captain of the 2011 NCAA Champion Alabama gymnastics team, has been named the 2010-11 Roy F. Kramer Female Athlete of the Year by a vote of the Southeastern Conference’s athletics directors.
" I am so proud of Kayla and all she has accomplished throughout her career," UA head coach Sarah Patterson said. " I think she had the perfect senior year – leading our ladies to conference, regional and national championships, earning the Honda Award, being named the Academic All-American of the Year and now being voted the Southeastern Conference Female Athlete of the Year. She is a shining example of the fact that at the University of Alabama you can truly have it all."
The Union, N.J., native is the sixth Alabama athlete and fifth UA gymnast to be named SEC Female Athlete of the Year, joining gymnasts Penney Hauschild (1985), Dee Foster (1990), Andrea Pickens (2002), Jeana Rice (2004) and track star Lillie Leatherwood (1987). Alabama’s six honorees ties the Tide with Tennessee for the SEC record for this award.
Hoffman clinched the Tide’s fifth NCAA Championship in mid-April with a 9.95 on the floor exercise and was the NCAA runner-up in the all-around and balance beam. She earned All-American accolades in the all-around, vault and balance beam this season, finishing her career with five first-team honors.
She became the first in league history to win both SEC Gymnast of the Year and the SEC Gymnastics Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors in the same season, after clinching Alabama’s 2011 SEC title by winning the vault with a 9.95.
The NCAA Central Region Gymnast of the Year, Hoffman won the all-around, vault, uneven bars and floor exercise at the 2011 NCAA Tuscaloosa Regional Championships. She also earned NCAA and SEC Postgraduate Scholarships and carries a career 4.0 grade point average in Human Development and Family Studies.