ATHENS, Ga. — Senior Haley de Jong of the University of Georgia gymnastics team was named a nominee for the AAI Award, presented to the nation’s most outstanding senior.
De Jong is one of 39 nominees for the award this year. The AAI award is widely considered the Heisman Trophy of women’s gymnastics.
The Vancouver native is a senior leader of the Georgia GymDogs. She brings a strong work ethic and drive to continue the Georgia gymnastics legacy. She was named one of three first-ever captains of the gymnastics program in 2023.
She has competed on beam in every meet since her freshman year and has been a staple in the vault, bars, and floor lineups, competing all-around consistently now as a senior. She received Georgia’s best beam score of the season and was the GymDogs’ top finisher three times on beam in 2022. After eight meets in 2023, de Jong has achieved career high scores of 9.9875 on vault, 9.925 on bars, and 9.950 on beam and floor. She has competed all-around 12 times.
She excels in the classroom with a 3.43 GPA in consumer economics and was inducted into UGA’s Leadership Academy in 2021. She has been named to the UGA J. Reid Parker Director of Athletics Academic Honor Roll every semester and to the SEC Honor Roll every year. Over the course of the last four years at the University of Georgia, de Jong has taken advantage of numerous volunteer opportunities, including Gymnastics Special Olympics, Lydia’s Place, Athens Boys and Girls Club, the back to school event with Howard B. Stood Elementary School, and Operation Teammate.
