NEW ORLEANS – Johns Hopkins cross country senior Emmanuel Leblond has been named the Men's NCAA Division III National Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA), becoming the first athlete in program history to earn the honor. The award follows his record-setting performance at the 2025 NCAA Cross Country Championships.
 
Leblond, the Centennial Conference and Mid-Atlantic Athlete of the Year, secured the national recognition after becoming the first individual NCAA champion in Johns Hopkins history. His victory also marked the Blue Jays' best individual finish since 2019, when Jared Pangallozzi placed fourth.
 
This season, Leblond continued to make history, becoming the only athlete at the 2025 NCAA Championship to earn All-America honors four consecutive years, and just the 18th runner in Division III history to achieve that milestone. His championship time of 23:35.0 set a new championship record, eclipsing the previous standard set in 2015 by four-tenths of a second.
 
Over the course of the season, Leblond competed in five races against 1,122 total competitors. Only seven Division I athletes—two each from Virginia, Georgetown and Harvard, and one from Texas A&M—finished ahead of him at any point, and none beat him by more than 6.2 seconds.