NEW YORK—Villanova women's track & field star
Roschell Clayton (Montego Bay, Jamaica) was announced on Thursday morning as one of two BIG EAST nominees for the 2025 NCAA Woman of the Year award. It is the second straight year that Clayton has been selected as a conference nominee for one of the nation's most prestigious honors. It is also the third time in the last four years that a Wildcats women's track & field athlete has earned recognition as a BIG EAST nominee for the Woman of the Year honor. Clayton and Connecticut women's basketball standout Paige Bueckers will each be forwarded to the Woman of the Year selection committee along with other conference level honorees from all three NCAA divisions.
The NCAA Woman of the Year program was established in 1991 and honors the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of graduating female college athletes. One of the first winners of the esteemed honor was Villanova women's track & field national champion
Nnenna Lynch who was the 1993 NCAA Woman of the Year and the first Rhodes Scholar in Villanova University history.
Clayton wrapped up a record-breaking collegiate career in March by winning her fourth career BIG EAST title in the high jump. She was named the Outstanding Field Performer at the BIG EAST Championships and graduates as the Villanova record holder in the high jump both indoors (1.88m) and outdoors (1.87m). Clayton is the Wildcats first athlete ever to be a four-time BIG EAST high jump champion and she demonstrated her elite ability on a national level with three career All-America honors. Her top finishes at the NCAA Championships include a tie for fifth place at the 2024 outdoor championships and a tie for sixth place at the 2024 indoor national meet.
The first time Clayton set her current school record of 1.88 meters in the high jump was in February 2024 in Boston. She matched the exact mark one month later at the same facility during the NCAA Championships, and later in 2024 became the second athlete in school history (first in the jumps) to win the championship section of a women's individual event at the Penn Relays. She qualified to compete in her native Jamaica's Olympic Trials in the summer of 2024 and was a four-time qualifier for the NCAA East Preliminary meet outdoors.
Clayton's four BIG EAST titles came at consecutive meets starting with the 2023 indoor conference championships and extending through the 2025 indoor conference meet. She is one of three field athletes in school history and the second high jumper to post a top-eight finish at the NCAA Championships. Along the way to her national finishes and setting the school records indoors and outdoors, Clayton improved her lifetime personal best by eight centimeters from May 2023 through February 2024.
The academic accomplishments for Clayton during her collegiate career are equally impressive to what she achieved in athletic competition. She graduated from Villanova a semester early in December 2023 with a major in Communication and went on to enroll in graduate school and pursue her MBA from the Villanova School of Business during her final three semesters of athletic eligibility. Clayton was named to the Athletic Director's Honor Roll for having a GPA of 3.2 or higher in all 10 of her semesters on campus. She was named to the USTFCCCA All-Academic Team five straight years from 2020-21 through 2024-25 and has also been a member of the BIG EAST All-Academic Team every year of her collegiate career.
Clayton won the BIG EAST Scholar-Athlete Sport Excellence Award for women's outdoor track & field in 2024 and was named the PhillySIDA Academic All-Area Performer of the Year in women's track & field the same year. She is a two-time member of the PhillySIDA Academic All-Area Team and earned College Sports Communicators Academic All-District recognition this year.
Community service is another component of the NCAA Woman of the Year nomination and Clayton has continuously been active in service projects on and off campus. Among the highlights are taking part in Read Across America at Radnor Elementary School and Coopertown Elementary, while also taking part in leadership talks at Radnor Middle School. Clayton has volunteered each year at the St. Thomas of Villanova Day of Service and the annual Special Olympics festival held on campus. She has participated in the Holiday Adopt-A-Family program and Villanova's Juneteenth Day of Service.
All conference-level nominees are forwarded to the national Woman of the Year selection committee. The selection committee will choose the top 10 honorees in each division. From among those 30 honorees, the selection committee will determine the three finalists in each division. Finally, the members of the Committee on Women's Athletics will vote from among the top nine finalists to determine the 2025 NCAA Woman of the Year. Later this fall, the national Top 30 honorees and nine finalists will be announced. The 2025 NCAA Woman of the Year will be announced at the 2026 NCAA Convention in January.
Eligibility for the 2024 NCAA Woman of the Year award is based on the following criteria:
