Brooks, Buca Named Michigan’s Big Ten Medal of Honor Recipients

Brooks, Buca Named Michigan’s Big Ten Medal of Honor Recipients

• Michigan Medal of Honor Recipients

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The University of Michigan Athletic Department announced Monday (April 17) that senior Sierra Brooks (women’s gymnastics) and graduate student Kevin Buca (men’s soccer) were named its 2023 Big Ten Medal of honor recipients.

The Big Ten Medal of Honor is awarded to one male and one female student from the graduating class of each member institution who has demonstrated excellence on and off the field throughout their college career. The highest honor that a student competing in conference athletics can achieve in the Big Ten, the award was established in 1915 and was the first award in intercollegiate athletics to demonstrate support for the educational emphasis placed on athletics. During the past century, the Big Ten Medal of Honor has been awarded to more than 1,500 honorees. These individuals have translated their campus experience into success in all walks of life.

Brooks is the department’s female recipient, the seventh from the women’s gymnastics program and the first since Nicole Artz in 2017. Other gymnastics recipients include: Heidi Cohen (1987), Beth Wymer (1995), Beth Amelkovich (1999), Janessa Grieco (2003), Sarah Curtis (2011) and Katie Zurales (2013).

The Plainfield, Ill. native has cemented herself as one of the greatest Michigan gymnasts of all time after a standout senior career in which she was named the 2023 AAI Award winner, is a seven-time WCGA First Team All-America honoree, became the first U-M gymnast to be named a three-time Regional Gymnast of the Year and is just the third Michigan gymnast to be named a two-time Big Ten Gymnast of the Year.

She was the 13th Wolverine in program history to earn first team all-conference honors on four occasions, joining Natalie Wojcik as the last U-M gymnast to do so. Brooks earned 16 event titles in 2023, including four all-around titles this season. The senior all-arounder was a 2023 regional champion with a perfect 10.0 on floor, earned a perfect 10.0 on vault at Rutgers, scored a career-high 9.975 on uneven bars against No. 1 Oklahoma, won a share of the Big Ten uneven bars title and was a three-time Big Ten…