NCAA All-American Swimmer Julie Stupp To Make Another NCAA Championship Appearance … In Track and Field — Updated with Historical Perspective

PHOENIX, Arizona, May 26. NCAA All-American swimmer Julie Stupp will join a relatively small list of aquatic athletes who excel at two sports when she competes Thursday at the NCAA Division I Track & Field Championships – West Preliminary in Austin, Texas.

Stupp was an All-American in the IMs and breaststroke events at the University of Arizona, making the championship finals in the 200 IM, 400 IM and 200 breast at the 2009 championships – her fourth year of competing at the meet. But Stupp, who swam at Auburn University for her first three years of eligibility, found a loophole in the NCAA rules that allows student-athletes to participate in a different sport at their university during their fifth year:

14.2 SEASONS OF COMPETITION : FIVE -YEAR RULE
"A student-athlete shall not engage in more than four seasons of intercollegiate competition in any one sport…"
14.2.1 Five-Year Rule. A student-athlete shall complete his or her seasons of participation within five calendar years from the beginning of the semester or quarter in which the student-athlete first registered for a minimum full-time program of studies in a collegiate institution…"

Essentially, the rule allows student-athletes to take up another sport in their fifth year, as long as they are enrolled full-time as a student at the university. Though Stupp sat out the 2007-08 season, she successfully petitioned to the NCAA to allow her the opportunity to compete during the track and field season. She is currently working on her degree in communications at Arizona.

Stupp will compete in the 800-meter run this weekend at the track and field championships. Click here to see the event's psych sheet. Running is not a new venture for Stupp, as she was a finalist in the 800 meters at the Missouri high school state championships.

Stupp still has plans to compete in the 2012 swimming Olympic Trials. She was a finalist in the 400 IM at the 2008 Trials, finishing eighth.

The list of college athletes who compete in two sports is expansive, but it is very rare when a swimmer chooses to take on another sport. Perhaps the most famous athlete to do this was Matt Biondi, who swam and played water polo for Cal-Berkeley concurrently for three years in the 1980s. To our knowledge, no NCAA Division I All-American swimmer since then has qualified for the NCAA championships in another sport. If you know of a collegiate swimmer who made All-American status in the pool and, at the very least, qualified for the NCAA championships in another sport during their college career, please let us know in our Reaction Time comments section below.

Shortly after posting this story, Swimming World received an email from Bruce Wigo, the CEO of the International Swimming Hall of Fame, with some perspective on aquatic athletes who played another sport while in college.

Wigo said swimmers who participate in a non-aquatic sport in college are very rare, but another one has done it very recently: Stanford's Dan Priestly swam for four years with the Cardinal and was on the roster for Stanford's football team in 2009.

And in addition to Biondi, three other U.S. Olympic medalists in swimming were successful in balancing swimming and water polo. Pablo Morales, an Olympic champion in 1984 and 1992, was a four-year letterwinner for Stanford in both sports. Brad Schumacher, a member of the winning freestyle relays in 1996, was a star water polo player and swimmer for the University of the Pacific.

But the athlete to get the best acclaim in swimming and water polo was Tim Shaw, who won a silver medal in the 400 freestyle in 1976 and a silver as a member of the U.S. water polo team in 1984. He also competed in both sports for Long Beach State University.

Stupp's transition to a non-aquatic sport is preceded by Morley Drury of the University of Southern California, who played water polo for the Trojans in the mid-1920s, in addition to achieving legendary status as a football player and also dabbling in basketball and ice hockey.

Also, a reader tells us that Keo Nakama was an NCAA champion for Ohio State University's swim team and the team captain for the school's baseball team in 1943, the year the baseball team won the Big Ten championship.

Special thanks to Bruce Wigo for his invaluable contribution to this report.

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