Stanford Leads List of Schools With Most Aquatic Sports Olympic Medalists

ORLANDO, Florida, June 14. THIRTY-NINE American universities were named today as winners of the U.S. Olympic Achievement Award, honoring schools with current student-athletes who won Olympic medals last year, and/or coaches that led medal-winning teams. Among those schools, 18 had coaches and/or athletes with Olympic ties in aquatic sports.

The Olympic medal was the only stipulation for inclusion to the list. That's why the University of Michigan is not on the list, as Connor Jaeger did not win a medal in the 1500 free final, and why Andrew Gemmell — for the same reason — is not included in the list of athletes for the University of Georgia. Auburn University also was left off the list, as Micah Lawrence came up short in the 200 breaststroke final, and Cammile Adams was not on the list of student-athletes for Texas A&M University.

Stanford University had the most names with Olympic medal-winning ties on the list with five. Annika Dries, Melissa Seidemann and Maggie Steffens won gold in women's water polo, while Kristian Ipsen picked up a bronze in the men's three-meter synchro diving event. And Rick Schavone was included as coach of the USA Diving team.

Duke University and the University of Texas were the only other schools with more than two aquatic sport names on the list. Abby Johnston and Nick McCrory both won medals in diving for Duke, while now-former Duke coach Drew Johansen was a member of the USA Diving coaching staff. For Texas, Jimmy Feigen made the list for his gold medal in the 400 free relay (as a prelim swimmer), while coaches Eddie Reese (swimming) and Matt Scoggin (diving) were also included.

Texas A&M, UC-Berkeley, Florida, Georgia and Southern Cal each had some combination of two aquatic sport-associated people on the list.

The California Golden Bears should have had three names on the list, but apparently an error missed out including one of the Olympic medal-winning swimmers. In the same way that 2012 incoming freshman Steffens was allowed to be listed for Stanford, Berkeley freshman Rachel Bootsma's name should be listed for winning a gold medal as part of the prelim squad for the 400 medley relay.

Full list of U.S. Olympic Achievement Award recipients (in PDF)

Name*

Email*

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use