This evening, at the Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C., the Tewaaraton Award will be given out to the nation’s most outstanding men’s and women’s lacrosse players, regardless of college division or position.
A lot of the lacrosse cogniscenti have settled into their camps as to which of the five women’s nominees should win the award. Each of the five have their own unique stories, their own roads to success, and their own abilities.
Many observers have linked the awarding of this trophy to how well their respective team did in the NCAA Tournament. That would lend conventional thinking to the awarding of this trophy to Madison Taylor of Northwestern, who paced the Wildcats with six assists in the championship game.
But we’ve noticed that, since 2021, there has been an indicator as to who wins the Tewaaraton. That indicator is whoever wins the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches’ Association’s Player of the Year award. Here are the winners of these two major awards since the pandemic:
2026: IWLCA — Chloe Humphrey; Tewaaraton — TBD
2025: IWLCA — Chloe Humphrey; Tewaaraton — Chloe Humphrey
2024: IWLCA — Izzy Scane; Tewaaraton — Izzy Scane
2023: IWLCA — Izzy Scane; Tewaaraton — Izzy Scane
2022: IWLCA — Charlotte North; Tewaaraton — Charlotte North
2021: IWLCA — Charlotte North; Tewaaraton — Charlotte North
Now, there are a lot of major awards in the world which do have indicators from other organizations as to who might win. People who track the Oscars or Emmys will sometimes look to the Golden Globe winners for indicators as to who might win these acting awards. More have also used the Screen Actors’ Guild awards to look for clues as to who will win on Oscar Night.
Other awards are a little more divergent. The Maxwell Football Club has been awarding an NFL Player of the Year since 1959, but the Pro Football Writers’ Association and the Associated Press often have different notions. Two years ago, for example, there were three different awardees.
Which goes to show you that sometimes there is a divergence between what one group of voters thinks and another. Might that happen tonight?