Gail Koziara Boudreaux '82 to Receive NCAA's Highest Honor

HANOVER, N.H. — Gail Koziara Boudreaux, a member of the Dartmouth Class of 1982, has been chosen as this year's winner of the Theodore Roosevelt Award, the highest honor the NCAA can bestow an individual. The first Dartmouth alum to receive the honor, she joins an elite group that includes four former U.S. Presidents and a number of legendary athletes and figures in American history.

The Theodore Roosevelt Award, widely known as "The Teddy," is awarded annually to a person who received at least one varsity letter for participation in varsity athletics and who went on to become a distinguished citizen of national reputation based on outstanding life accomplishments.

Currently the President and CEO of Anthem Inc., Boudreaux was a standout athlete for the Big Green. A four-time All-Ivy League player and three-time recipient of the Ivy League Player of the Year in women's basketball, she earned a spot on the All-America Third Team as a senior in 1982. She remains the program's all-time leading scorer with 1,933 points (average of 21.9 per game) and rebounder with 1,635 (18.4 per game) and led Dartmouth to three conference crowns.

Boudreaux was an All-American in the shot put in her senior campaign for the Big Green women's track and field team as well, and was the Ivy League champion in the event each of her four years. She also won the discus throw as a junior and senior, placing her in the top 10 for total individual titles in conference history for women's track and field.

After graduating from Dartmouth, Boudreaux earned an MBA in finance and health care administration from Columbia Business School. She also started her 20-year career at Aetna, ascending through the ranks to become Senior Vice President. In 2002, she became the President of BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois, and was later named Executive Vice President of Health Care Service Corporation, the parent company of BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

In 2008, Ms. Boudreaux joined UnitedHealthcare as president of the company's commercial business, then was named CEO of United Healthcare in 2011. As the CEO, Boudreaux ran the largest division of the company, which accounted for the vast majority of the company's overall growth. She had responsibility for approximately $120 billion in revenue and managed more than 60,000 employees serving 45 million consumers. During her tenure, UnitedHealthcare increased its revenue by 50 percent.

Today, she is the President and CEO of the third largest company with a woman as its CEO. Anthem serves more than 43 million consumers through its affiliated health plans, and more than 116 million lives across its broad portfolio of health insurance and services subsidiaries. Her leadership and actions have helped elevate Anthem as an employer of choice, focused on inclusion and diversity. The company has recently been recognized by:

Fortune as one the 100 Best Companies to Work For
Bloomberg on the Gender-Equality Index
Forbes as a Best Employer for Diversity and as one of America's Best Employers
The Human Rights Campaign as a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality
Disability: IN & American Association of People with Disabilities on the Disability Equality Index Best Places to Work
The Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility on the Corporate Inclusion Index

Boudreaux's recognition for her athletic exploits continued following her college days, being named to the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003 before receiving the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award in 2007 for outstanding professionalism and athletic achievement. She was an inaugural member of Dartmouth's Wearers of the Green, the college's athletics hall of fame, in 1984, plus was recognized in the inaugural class of Ivy Legends of Basketball in 2017.

Boudreaux has been an ardent supporter of Dartmouth College and the athletics department as well, serving as a Trustee for the college and endowing the head coaching position for the women's basketball program.

Professionally, Boudreaux has been named as one of Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful Women in Business and featured by Forbes as one of 100 Most Powerful Women in the World. She has been named by Modern Healthcare as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare and one of the Top 25 Women Leaders. She also received the 2018 Billie Jean King Leadership Award for outstanding leadership and significant contributions to the advancement of women through achievements in sports and the workplace.

Boudreaux will receive the award as part of the NCAA Honors Celebration at the NCAA Convention on Wednesday, Jan. 19 at 7 p.m. Dartmouth College President Phil Hanlon '77 will be on hand to present her with the award.

Theodore Roosevelt Award Winners
Year	Recipient	School	Sport(s)
1967	Dwight D. Eisenhower	Army West Point	football
1968	Leverett Saltonstall	Harvard	rowing
1969	Byron "Whizzer" White	Colorado	football, basketball
1970	Frederick L. Hovde	Minnesota	football
1971	Christopher C. Kraft Jr.	Virginia Tech	baseball
1972	Jerome H. Holland	Cornell	football
1973	Omar Bradley	Army West Point	baseball
1974	Jesse Owens	Ohio State	track and field
1975	Gerald Ford	Michigan	football
1976	Thomas J. Hamilton	Navy	football, basketball, baseball
1977	Tom Bradley	UCLA	football
1978	Gerald B. Zornow	Rochester	football, basketball, baseball
1979	Otis Chandler	Stanford	track and field
1980	Denton Cooley	Texas	basketball
1981	Art Linkletter	San Diego State	basketball, swimming
1982	Bill Cosby	Temple	football (rescinded in 2018)
1983	Arnold Palmer	Wake Forest	golf
1984	William P. Lawrence	Navy	basketball, football, tennis
1985	Robben Fleming	Beloit
1986	George H. W. Bush	Yale	baseball
1987	Walter J. Zable	William & Mary	football
1988	Not presented
1989	Paul Ebert	Ohio State	baseball, basketball
1990	Ronald Reagan	Eureka	football
1991	Althea Gibson	Florida A&M	tennis
1992	Jack Kemp	Occidental	football
1993	Lamar Alexander	Vanderbilt	track and field
1994	Rafer Johnson	UCLA	track and field
1995	Bob Mathias	Stanford	track and field
1996	John Wooden	Purdue	basketball
1997	William Porter Payne	Georgia	football
1998	Bob Dole	Washburn	basketball
1999	Bill Richardson	Tufts	baseball
2000	Roger Staubach	Navy	football
2001	William Cohen	Bowdoin	basketball
2002	Eunice Kennedy Shriver	Stanford	swimming, track and field
2003	Donna de Varona	UCLA	swimming
2004	Alan Page	Notre Dame	football
2005	Sally Ride	Stanford	tennis
2006	Robert Kraft	Columbia	football
2007	Paul Tagliabue	Georgetown	basketball
2008	John Glenn	Muskingum
2009	Madeleine Albright	Wellesley	swimming, rowing, field hockey
2010	George J. Mitchell	Bowdoin	basketball
2011	Ann E. Dunwoody	SUNY Cortland	gymnastics, tennis
2012	Will Allen	University of Miami	basketball
2013	Tony Dungy	Minnesota	football
2014	Billy Mills	Haskell Indian Nations University / Kansas	track and field
2015	Mannie Jackson	Illinois	basketball
2016	Peter Ueberroth	San Jose State	water polo
2017	Beth Brooke-Marciniak	Purdue	basketball
2018	Barry E. Wilmore	Tennessee Tech	football
2019	Robert L. Caslen	Army West Point	football
2020	Bob Delaney	New Jersey City University	basketball
2021	John McLendon	Tennessee State	basketball
2022	Gail Koziara Boudreaux	Dartmouth	basketball, track and field

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