Alabama’s Chelangat and Waters Earn USTFCCCA Regional Cross Country Awards
3/18/2021 5:20:00 PM | Track & Field, Cross Country
Mercy Chelangat, the NCAA Cross Country Champion, was named the South Region Athlete of the Year, while Dan Waters was named the Regional Women’s Coach of the Year
NEW ORLEANS – Alabama's Mercy Chelangat and Dan Waters earned South Region Cross Country Women's Athlete and Coach of the Year for the 2020 NCAA Division I Cross Country season it was announced Thursday by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
Each of the nine regions – Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Mountain, Northeast, South, South Central, Southeast and West – honored both the top men's and women's athletes as well as the top men's and women's head coaches.
Alabama Head Coach Dan Water Said
"Mercy is certainly deserving of this award. She has worked throughout her career to put herself in a position to compete at the level she did on Monday. I'm so proud of our entire women's team for the job they did in staying focused and working so hard to take our team not only back to the NCAA Championships, but back to the top-10. It was an amazing season. And while my name is on the award, Will Palmer coaches our women's distance group and he and our other coaches have done a phenomenal job to get us to this point and this honor really goes to them."
Mercy Chelangat
- Chelangat, a junior from Kericho, Kenya, won the individual title at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships in Stillwater, Okla., on Monday, leading Alabama to an eighth-place finish
- She is the first NCAA Cross Country Champion in school history and only the second from the Southeastern Conference
- Earlier in the season, Chelangat won the individual title at the SEC Cross Country Championships, leading Alabama to a second-place finish
- She also won the Florida State Invitational and was third at the Vanderbilt Commodore Classic
Dan Waters
- Waters, in his 10th year at Alabama, guided the Crimson Tide to an eighth-place team finish at the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships in Stillwater, Okla., on Monday
- It was the second-highest team finish in school history
- Earlier in the season, Alabama finished runner-up at the SEC Championships
- The Tide also earned a pair of second-place finishes at the Florida State Invitational and Vanderbilt Commodore Classic in regular-season competition
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Players Mentioned
