STANFORD, Calif. - Harrison Williams (men's track and field) and Ella Eastin (women's swimming) have been selected as Stanford's 2018-19 Pac-12 Tom Hansen Conference Medal recipients.
A Conference Medal is awarded annually to each institution's outstanding senior male and female student-athlete based on the combination of performance and achievement in scholarship, athletics and leadership.
The first woman in history to win four NCAA titles in the 400-yard individual medley, Eastin holds a 3.74 GPA as a human biology major. The Pac-12 Women's Swimming and Diving Scholar Athlete of the Year was a CoSIDA Academic All-American last year and is a three-time Pac-12 All-Academic honoree. She earned six All-America honors in 2019 and led Stanford to its third straight Pac-12 and NCAA championships. A team captain, Eastin won national titles in the 400 IM and 800 free relay as well as Pac-12 titles in the 400 IM, 500 free and 200 back, and finished her career with four American, NCAA and school records.
Harrison Williams capped his collegiate track and field career with a runner-up finish in the decathlon at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, earning his sixth first-team All-America honor. Williams became Stanford's first multi-events athlete to win an NCAA title when he captured the heptathlon at the 2019 indoor championships. He was the 2019 Pac-12 Men's Track and Field Scholar-Athlete of the Year and the 2018 Pac-12 decathlon champion. Williams burst on to the scene as a freshman when he broke a school decathlon record that had stood for 63 years, when Bob Mathias set it in winning the 1952 Olympic gold medal in Helsinki. In 2016, he was part of foursome that gave Stanford its first mile relay or 4x400 title at the conference meet in 62 years. Williams went on to break the Stanford decathlon record five times and the heptathlon record three times. He has three All-Academic selections each from both the USTFCCCA and Pac-12. Finally, Williams was the recipient of the Biff Hoffman Award as Stanford's outstanding senior in a male sport.
Conference medal winners have been named every year since the 1960-61 academic year. In 2009, the Pac-12 renamed the award the Tom Hansen Conference Medal in honor of Hansen, who retired at the end of June 2009 after serving for 26 years as Commissioner of the Pac-10.