How College Swimming Changed My Life: Boilermaker Vilmos Kovacs

Photo Courtesy: Purdue Athletics

By Andy Ross, Swimming World College Intern

There are a small amount of international college student-athletes that stay more than four years in the states. Most internationals go back home after graduation or stay for a few years and end up going back home after a few years. But for Purdue graduate Vilmos Kovacs, he has made West Lafayette, Indiana his home since his arrival in the fall of 1995.

Boilermaker Recordbreaker

Originally from Hungary, Kovacs came to the United States to get a good education and be able to provide for a family.

“I trained with so many great swimmers back home. They were great swimmers, but once they were done swimming, they didn’t know anything else. They really struggled,” Kovacs said.

Photo Courtesy: Vilmos Kovacs

Kovacs studied computer science at Purdue and then changed his major to management. Kovacs’ finest memories from college are the ones he shared with his team. He recalls that his favorite moment was being a part of the first relay at Purdue to win a Big Ten Championship in 1997, his sophomore year. Kovacs swam the breaststroke leg on the 400 medley relay team that won and set a school record.

“I wanted to be top three in the 200 IM but my goggles filled up with water,” Kovacs remembered. “(Purdue men’s head coach Dan Ross) saw that I was upset and I don’t remember what he said, but I said ‘watch this’ before the relay and we went out and won it.”

Kovacs also finished third in the 200 breaststroke at the 1996 NCAA Championships which is the highest finish for a Purdue men’s swimmer at the NCAAs to this day. He also won four individual Big Ten titles and was named an All-American four times.

Swimming into the American Life

Kovacs noted that swimming in college helped him adjust to life in the United States faster than if he would have been a regular student.

“I didn’t speak English. My teammates took pride in teaching me English words,” Kovacs said. He also remembered struggling in simple things that his American classmates did not have trouble with. Little things like going to the grocery store, getting a cell phone, and opening a bank account were all things Kovacs did not know how to do in his first years of college. He said if he did not have his teammates to help him through those things, he probably would not have made it.

Swimming has also helped Kovacs after college. It has given him structure in life to get work done efficiently and stay organized. He also talked about how belonging to a group of people was one of the best experiences he had and his teammates remain some of his closest friends to this day.

Hungarian Ways Intact

Kovacs graduated from Purdue in 2000. He still resides in West Lafayette with his wife (who is also Hungarian) and his three sons. He is currently the IT manager for Cook Research in West Lafayette. Despite making the United States home since graduation, Kovacs still speaks Hungarian in his home with his family, cooks Hungarian cuisine, and tries to plan trips to Hungary once a year for his kids to experience the heritage and visit family members.

Kovacs still keeps in close contact with the Purdue swimming family as well. He was recently inducted into the Purdue Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame in April 2015. His kids are members of the Boilermaker Aquatics club team nearby where he was formerly one of the age group coaches. He is also an amateur cook and hosts dinner parties for the swim coaches at Purdue and their families.

The values that Kovacs learned during his tenure at Purdue still stick with him today. College swimming instilled in him a hard work ethic now applied to his job. His learned discipline has helped him provide for his family, one of the main reasons he came to the United States in the first place. Although Vilmos shaped much of Purdue swimming’s history, it was swimming at Purdue that shaped him into the man he is today.

Watch Vilmos’ favorite swimming memory here (31:08)

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