WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
GAMBIER, Ohio — After balloting at the national level, Emmie Mirus and Crile Hart, recent Kenyon College graduates and members of the 2022 NCAA Division III national champion swimming and diving team, earned positions on the 2021-22 Academic All-America Women’s At-Large Team, as voted on by members of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
Only 46 NCAA Division III students-athletes were selected for the honor and that group was split into three teams. While both Mirus and Hart took spots among the 16-member first-team, Hart was also the top vote-getter and deemed the 2021-22 CoSIDA Academic All-America Team Member of the Year. That prestigious honor has only been earned by three other females in the highly-successful history of the Kenyon swimming and diving program.
Both Hart’s and Mirus’ path to the national honor began at the Academic All-District level in which a nominee had to be at least of sophomore standing and had to possess at least a 3.3 cumulative grade point average. Once the Kenyon duo gained first-team positions on the Academic All-District Team, they became eligible for Academic All-America status.
Throughout the process, they were included in the CoSIDA At-Large pool, which, in addition to swimming and diving, included nominees from the sports of fencing, field hockey, golf, gymnastics, lacrosse, rifle, skiing, tennis, volleyball, as well as several others.
The Academic All-America recognition was a first for Hart, but the second for Mirus, who collected third-team honors following the 2019-20 season. During this past season, the pair helped the Kenyon swimming and diving team win the 2022 North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Championship, as well as the NCAA Division III Championship, the program’s NCAA record 24th national team title.
During that 2021-22 NCAA Championship meet, Hart won six event titles and set four records. That boosted her final collegiate career totals to 14 NCAA event titles, as well as the maximum 28 career College Swimming Coaches Association of American (CSCAA) All-America certificates. Additionally, Hart’s career included two NCAA Division III Swimmer of the Year awards and three finalist nods for the Honda Athlete of the Year. She’s a 19-time conference event champion, was twice named NCAC Swimmer of the Year and was voted Kenyon’s 2021-22 Senior Athlete of the Year.
An anthropology major from Pepper Pike, Ohio, Hart logged multiple inclusions on the Kenyon Merit List, as well as the NCAC’s Academic Honor Roll.
Mirus, a double major in sociology and Spanish, also made multiple appearances on Kenyon’s Merit List and the NCAC’s Academic Honor Roll. She’s a member of Phi Beta Kappa and has both a Kenyon Honor Scholarship and the Chemistry Achievement Award from the Chemical Rubber Company. She was selected as Kenyon’s nominee for the NCAC Pam Smith Woman of the Year Award, as well as the winner of Kenyon’s Falkenstine Award, for leadership and integrity. Most recently, she was awarded an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.
In the pool, Mirus, who calls Madison, Wisconsin home, won four NCAA Championship events this past season and had six top-three finishes. That brought her career collection to five NCAA Championship titles and 22 CSCAA All-America certificates. She’s also a three-time CSCAA Scholar All-American and a nine-time NCAC Championship event title winner.
