Sarah Dance was the female winner of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's highest academic honor, the 2005 Walter Byers Award, in recognition of being the nation's top female scholar-athlete. She was a 28-time All-American swimmer who helped lead Truman State University to four national championships.
Dance is a native of Lincoln, Nebraska. She initially enrolled at the University of Nebraska for her freshman year before transferring to Truman State, where she majored in exercise science with a biology minor and graduated with a perfect GPA.