The first player of the year award for women's college basketball was the Broderick Award, established in 1977 by Thomas Broderick, the owner of a company that manufactured sports apparel. It's now known as the Honda Sports Award for basketball; a similar award is given for 11 other womens' college sports.
The winner of the individual sports awards automatically become finalists for the Honda-Broderick Cup, which is presented to the outstanding woman college athlete of the year.
The National Association for Girls and Women in Sports (NAGWS) established the Wade Trophy as a player of the year award in 1978. The award is named for Margaret Wade, long-time Delta State coach who was one of the first two women inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. It's now presented joinly by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association and State Farm Insurance.
In 1983, the Atlanta Tip-Off Club began presenting the Naismith Trophy, named for the inventor of basketball, and the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) established its own player of the year award. The WBCA dropped its award in 2007, when it took over co-sponsorship of the Wade Trophy.
The Associated Press established its award in 1995. In 2004, the John Wooden Award for women's basketball joined the similar award for male basketball players, which had been inaugurated in 1977.
The Nancy Lieberman Award, established in 2000, is given by the Rotary Club of Detroit to the player selected by a panel of sportswriters as the outstanding point guard in women's Division I basketball.
