University of Houston Athletics
Swimming and Diving Earns Academic Honor
2/19/2010 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
Feb. 19, 2010
HOUSTON - The University of Houston swimming and diving team was named a College Swimming Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) All-American Team following their performance in the classroom during the Fall 2009 semester.
The Cougars finished with a team 3.39 GPA, ranking them 20th among NCAA Division I programs. This was the highest ranking of any Conference USA team and teams from the state of Texas.
While performance in the pool is important to head swimming coach Mark Taylor, performance in the classroom is just as important so he was thrilled with his team's ranking.
"It's one of the most important things to our team, making sure that we are one of the top academic teams out there," Taylor said. "We want to make sure that we are doing everything that we possibly can to fulfill our part of the deal and our part of the deal is to make sure these girls have a degree when they leave this place."
Not everyone can be an Olympic gold medalist but anybody can be a 4.0 student. We are doing our best to make sure that that happens. The girls have really bought into that and it is very important to them also."
It is so important to the team that upon hearing the news the girls reevaluated their future academic goals.
"They were thrilled (when we told them of the ranking)," Taylor said. "They have actually reset their team goal to earn a 3.5 GPA."
In addition to the academic ranking, the final CSCAA Coach's poll was released and Houston found themselves ranked 41st, the team's first ranking among the Top 50.
Houston is currently preparing to host the Conference USA Swimming and Diving Championships at the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center Natatorium on Feb. 24-27.
