Destiny Johnson of Lees-McRae and Jami Tham of Barton Chosen as Conference Carolinas Nominees for NCAA Woman of the Year
INDIANAPOLIS – Destiny Johnson of Lees-McRae and Jami Tham of Barton will serve as Conference Carolinas’ official nominees for the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year award.
The duo is part of 577 nominees from across all of the NCAA in the 32
nd year of the Woman of the Year award program. NCAA Division II has 127 nominees including Johnson and Tham. The average grade-point average of those nominated is 3.8.
A member of the Lees-McRae women’s basketball program, Johnson boasted an incredibly impressive 4.00 GPA as an Elementary Education major. The 5-foot-6 guard from Iron Station, North Carolina became the 15th player in Lees-McRae women's basketball program history to reach 1,000 career points to help lead the Bobcats to their fourth Conference Carolinas postseason appearance in the previous five seasons. Johnson also was a team captain and was named the league's Defensive Player of the Week on January 17, 2022. She was a second-team all-conference selection in the 2020-21 season and a third-team all-league choice in the 2019-20 campaign.
In addition to her efforts on the court, Johnson was awarded Lees-McRae’s Fred I. Dickerson Award, which is given to the female student-athlete with the highest GPA. She was also awarded the Sullivan Award, which is given to a graduating senior at Lees-McRae whose “nobility of character” and service to others sets them apart as examples to all. She also received the Lees-McRae Teacher Education Award that is awarded to the student who has demonstrated excellence with a purposeful commitment to the teaching profession. She was inducted into Chi Alpha Sigma, the National College Athlete Honor Society, in 2022. A CoSIDA Academic All-American in 2021, Johnson was selected to the Conference Carolinas Presidential Honor Roll Presented by Southern Recognition LLC for all eight of her semesters.
Johnson has also been a strong representative for Lees-McRae and Conference Carolinas in the community where she has volunteered her time with various organizations in the high country. She coordinated and packed food for the homeless families in the local community with Feeding Avery Families, while also doing volunteer community cleanup on the roadside on the Mountain Day of Service. She also worked with Food Lion to help families in need and elderly community members obtain needed groceries. A member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee at Lees-McRae, Johnson collected donations for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Johnson also took part in a program where she attended athletic events of elementary school students in the area to support their extracurricular activities. She also read literature to toddlers in the area to help foster the love of reading.
A member of the Conference Carolinas champion Barton women’s basketball team, Tham finished second on the team in points scored (16.0 points per game) and first in rebounding (10.9 rebounds per game) in the 2021-22 season. The 6-foot center from Arlington, Virginia owned a 3.92 grade-point average while majoring in Exercise Science with a minor in Honors Research. Tham, who also led Barton to its fourth playoff berth in the last five seasons, was the Elite 23 award winner for Conference Carolinas women’s basketball in the 2021-22 season. Tham was a first-team all-conference selection in 2020-21 and 2021-22 and a second-team choice in the 2019-20 season.
Tham was selected as the Most Outstanding Student in Exercise Science at Barton in 2022 while also being named a finalist for the Conference Carolinas Murphy Osborne Award, which is Conference Carolinas' Outstanding Senior Student-Athlete Award. Student-Athletes are nominated by their institutions based on their academic, athletic, and service accomplishments. A Conference Carolinas Academic all-conference choice, Tham received Barton’s Edward L. Cloyd Scholarship Award in 2022.
A member of Barton’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee for four years, Tham also spent time as President where she voted on NCAA Division II legislation, attended national and conference-wide events, organized fundraising events and hosted informational meetings. In addition, Tham helped raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation before, during and after sporting events on the Barton campus. She also helped organize campus-wide entertainment events. Tham was also a valuable part of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee on the Barton campus where she helped organize educational cultural events, discuss cultural and institutional issues and attended conference-wide events. Tham also served as a Teacher’s Assistant for Biology where she taught college students introductory-level biology, graded papers, quizzes and tests. She also created study groups and held study sessions in addition to serving as a peer tutor for biology, anatomy and physiology and psychology. Tham also collected well over 100 hours of didactic hours of educational lectures and meetings on health resources and services administration topics for underserved communities along with 100-plus hours of working in health facilities in the underserved communities. She also donated non-perishable food items to Hope Station to help the communities. Tham also donated food to veterans through Feed Our Vets.
The NCAA Woman of the Year program was established in 1991 and honors the academic achievements, athletics excellence, community service and leadership of graduating female college athletes from all three divisions. To be eligible, a nominee must have competed and earned a varsity letter in an NCAA-sponsored sport and must have earned her undergraduate degree by Summer 2022.
Eligible female student-athletes are nominated by their member school. Each conference office then reviews the nominations from its core member schools (and sponsored sports) and submits its conference nominee(s) to the NCAA. All nominees who compete in a sport that is not sponsored by their school’s primary conference, as well as associate conference nominees and independent nominees, will be sent to a separate pool to be considered by a committee. Then, the NCAA Woman of the Year selection committee identifies the Top 30 – 10 from each division –and from there selects three finalists from each division. From the nine finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics then selects the NCAA Woman of the Year, who will be named later this fall.
To learn more about the NCAA Woman of the Year program, please visit
here.