UMass field hockey player was honored for overcoming great personal, academic, and emotional odds to achieve academic success while participating in intercollegiate athletics.
UMass field hockey player Amy Novak was honored with the Wilma Rudolph Student-Athlete Achievement Award at the N4A Convention in Miami. Intended to honor an individual that has overcome great personal, academic, and emotional odds to achieve academic success while participating in intercollegiate athletics, Novak is one of six recipients this year chosen from 36 entrants nationwide. Along with a Novak’s acceptance speech, a video was shown that chronicled the challenges she overcame.
The National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics (N4A) is a diverse organization of service professionals who promote the integrity of their profession by providing guiding principles and quality services to support one another as they share information, resources and expertise in their efforts to empower student-athletes to become more productive individuals through educational and personal development.
Novak has compiled nearly a 3.3 GPA as a double major in English and Political Science, while playing two years of UMass field hockey and redshirting one year. She endured multiple injuries and tragedies during her UMass career as well as almost becoming academically ineligible, yet never lost her desire for the sport or finishing her degree.
Her academic counselor Pete Montague, who nominated her for this award, said, “I expected that any day could be the knockout blow for her emotionally because her life, ability to walk, and playing career were all in jeopardy at different times. She never once felt sorry for herself or complained about her situation. “
During her freshman season, a shoulder injury prematurely ended her season. She then lost a good friend in the Virginia Tech shootings and had to deal with the transition of a new coaching staff.
Problems escalated during her sophomore year, where she needed an emergency appendectomy, as well as discovered she had a severe food allergy that restricted her diet. The worst was yet to come, however, as she lost all feeling and control of her legs in the preseason of her sophomore year. Essentially paralyzed, Novak needed emergency back surgery, where the doctors fused her spine. Her vertebrae had been fracturing and re-breaking as she played field hockey and the fractured parts had calcified so many times that part of her vertebrae had broken off and slid into her spinal cord, causing the paralysis.
When she felt nothing else could go wrong, Novak suffered a blood clot in her lungs that stopped her from breathing and hospitalized her once again.
Novak came back to play in her redshirt sophomore season, seeing action in 18 games, recording one assists and 13 shots. At the team banquet in May, Novak received the Marissa Factora Unsung Hero/Coaches Award.