ST LOUIS, MISSOURI - JUNE 27: Kayla DiCello competes in the floor exercise during the Women's competition of the 2021 U.S. Gymnastics Olympic Trials at America’s Center on June 27, 2021 in St Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
Oklahoma gymnast named Big 12 Female Athlete of the Year
Oklahoma gymnast Anastasia Webb has been named the 2021 Big 12 Female Athlete of the Year.
As a senior this season, Webb led the Sooners to a runner-up finish in the NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Championship. She also was crowned the individual national champion in the all-around, vault and floor exercise. She is just the ninth gymnast in NCAA history to earn three individual titles in one season.
Webb, who is from the northern Chicago suburb of Morton Grove, was the 2021 Big 12 Gymnast of the Year and was the only gymnast in the country this season to earn All-America honors on all four women’s gymnastics events.
This year, Webb was named the winner of the Honda Sport Award for gymnastics and was a Top-Three Finalist for the Honda Cup, which honors the Women’s Collegiate Athlete of the Year. She became the first gymnast in OU program history and just the second Sooner to ever be named a Top-Three Finalist.
This is the second year in a row that an Oklahoma gymnast has been named Big 12 Female Athlete of the Year. Maggie Nichols was so honored a year ago.
Jared Butler, a guard on the Baylor men’s basketball team, was named the 2021 Big 12 Male Athlete of the Year.
Fourteen times in the 25 year history of the Big 12 that someone from OU has been named Athlete of the Year in the conference. Three different times (2019-20. 2017-18 and 2015-16, Oklahoma swept both the men’s and women’s awards. Jalen Hurts and Nichols won in 2019-20. Baker Mayfield and Nichols won in 2017-18, and Buddy Hield and Paige Parker (softball) swept the award in 2015-16.
