Gymnastics 
Courtesy: Kristin Boyd
Heenan, fresh off helping the Gym Dogs to a fourth straight NCAA title, is the seventh Georgia gymnast to receive this prestigious honor and the second in a row as Courtney Kupets was the 2007 Honda Award winner for gymnastics.
The Honda Sports Award is given annually to the top women athletes in 12 NCAA-sanctioned sports, along with automatic nomination for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year. Heenan was voted over three other nominees: Lindsey Bruck (Michigan), Ashley Postell, (Utah), and Tabitha Yim (Stanford).
"I have said many times that Katie Heenan exemplifies what a collegiate student-athlete should be, and it is great to see her rewarded for that with the top honor you can win in our sport," Georgia head coach Suzanne Yoculan said. "Winning the four titles with her team would have been enough for Katie, and that's why she's receiving all of these individual awards. It is that selflessness she competed with her entire career that allowed her to be successful as a teammate and an individual."
Heenan earned four more First-Team All-America honors her senior year for a total of 13 All-America certificates, and she has been a member of the All-Southeastern Conference team all four years, only the fifth Georgia gymnast and 12th overall to accomplish that feat. The 2007 SEC Gymnast of the Year was the top all-arounder at the conference championships in both her freshman and junior years and the runner-up her senior year.
Behind her second-place 39.575 all-around score at this year's SEC Championships, it was enough to move Heenan into first place all-time as Georgia's career scoring leader. She is also the all-time leading scorer on the uneven bars, second on beam, third on vault and fifth on floor. She won 81 individual event titles throughout her career, the most coming on vault and bars with 20 each. Twenty-two of those titles came in her senior campaign. She has been a very consistent collegiate gymnast, hitting more than 95 percent of her career routines.
Heenan excels in the classroom as well, as she has been listed as both a NACGC Academic All-American and SEC Academic Honor Roll member.
"The coaching staff calls Katie the 'glue that holds the team together,' which is a real testament to her leadership abilities," Yoculan explained. "She has especially stepped up her senior year and never let this team forget its mission, even when times were tough and she herself was struggling through a severe injury."
The middle school education major loves children and volunteers her time with Special Olympic children to teach them gymnastics. In February, Heenan won the award as the Georgia Sportswoman of the Year by the Georgia Women's Intersport Network.
Probably more impressive than the numbers she has put up is the way she has dealt with a chronic injury. Following the 2007 NCAA Championships, Heenan was diagnosed with having two herniated discs in her back. She had competed all-around in all but one meet that year with the injury and did so through the painful injury. She was forced to not begin training until October of her senior year and was not practicing full routines until November. The herniated discs are a very painful injury that she has had to compete through and take special precautions all season long to pace herself throughout the year.
However, Heenan put up her usual high numbers all year long and hit all but one of her 50 competitive routines this season. In her first time back in the all-around this season in the team's ninth meet of the year, she finished with a first-place 39.600 behind a 10.0 on vault -- the first perfect 10 of her career. She went on to win two more all-around titles with scores of 39.725 and a personal-best 39.775, which was the third highest score in the country in 2008. She has set new career highs on three of the four events and tied her other, while also posting a Perfect 10 on floor in the last meet of the regular season.
"I'm very honored to win the Honda Sports Award," Heenan said. "After I was diagnosed with two herniated disks in my back last year I went through an especially painful season, and it's really gratifying to see that my decision to keep training and competing and all the effort I made during the season hav really paid off. I could never have done it without the great support I received from my coaches, trainers, doctors and teammates all year. Getting this award just one year after Courtney Kupets won it is just amazing. She's a remarkable woman and a wonderful athlete."
Heenan capped her stellar career at the NCAA Championships by leading her team to a fourth straight national title. She added four more First-Team All-America honors to her resume and finished as the NCAA runner-up on uneven bars. The all-time leading scorer in Gym Dog history leaves Georgia with four NCAA titles, three SEC titles, 13 All-America honors and a 131-9-1 record in four years.
Other Gym Dogs to win the Honda Award include: Lucy Wener (1989), Hope Spivey (1991), Heather Stepp (1992), Kim Arnold (1997, 1998), Karin Lichey (1999) and Courtney Kupets (2007).
