UVA swimmers create endowed scholarship

Olympic champion and American record-holding University of Virginia swimmer Kate Douglass went to her coach, Todd DeSorbo, this previous spring to ask how she may compensate him for teaching her.

“I told her that I wasn’t interested in taking her money … I would rather [she] invest back in the team,” he says.

Douglass graduated from UVA in 2023 after a prolific collegiate swimming profession, throughout which she gained seven particular person nationwide titles and broke a number of NCAA information. Since graduating, she has stayed in Charlottesville and continues to coach at UVA underneath DeSorbo.

While gearing up for the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore in mid-July, three UVA swimmers made an announcement: The UVA Swimming & Diving program would create the Olympic Endowed Scholarship for Women’s Swimming Fund. The new scholarship is spearheaded by Douglass, with Alex and Gretchen Walsh—all champion UVA swimmers and Olympic medalists.

The fund, which receives a 50 % match from the Virginia Athletics Foundation, will help a swimmer on the ladies’s workforce, constructing on the workforce’s legacy. 

Douglass says that every one three ladies “felt like this was a great way for us to give back to the program that has given us so much and given us the opportunities that we now have in swimming.” 

In 2021, the Cavs gained their first NCAA swimming and diving championship, and Alex Walsh and Douglass every took dwelling NCAA gold. Four years later, with Gretchen Walsh on the workforce, the ladies earned their fifth consecutive nationwide title, and Douglass and the Walshes maintain 11 (of the 19 doable) NCAA information.

Gretchen has graduated and Alex completed her fifth and ultimate yr of eligibility, however they’ll be part of Douglass and stay at UVA to coach for his or her skilled swimming careers. The three collectively introduced dwelling 5 gold and three silver medals (together with two relay world information) from the World Aquatics Championships. 

The ladies’s workforce is exhibiting no signal of slowing down, metaphorically or within the pool, and DeSorbo acknowledges the affect Douglass and the Walsh sibs have made on the aquatics program. 

“I think they are well aware of what UVA and our program has done for them … and vice versa,” DeSorbo says. “Their success certainly has helped us continue to recruit at a really high level and continue to be a highly sought-after program for a lot of young athletes. Them giving back like this is pretty impressive.” 

DeSorbo, who additionally coached the three on the 2024 Olympic swim workforce, is worked up that the trio is sticking round. But much more, he admires their dedication to provide again to the workforce. 

“The most special part about [this is] it provides even more evidence that they had a great experience, they enjoyed their time here, they’re happy with their experience at UVA as a whole with our swimming program and the athletic department,” DeSorbo provides. 

The scholarship may even obtain outdoors donations. 

“Hopefully other swimmers coming out of UVA after they graduate, whether they’re Olympians or not, [will] think about donating to this scholarship and … add more funds to it,” Douglass says. “We thought this scholarship was a great way to leave our legacy in the team because years from now we’re going to be very far removed from UVA swim and dive. This was kind of a way to keep us involved.”

On the opposite facet of the pool, the UVA males’s swim workforce can be celebrating current monetary positive aspects, due to an
August 5 nameless $2.2 million donation, the biggest present in program historical past. 

“This gift couldn’t come at a more pivotal time,” DeSorbo informed Virginia Sports of the present. “We’re bringing in what I believe is the best recruiting class in the country, and maybe one of the best in NCAA history. This support will help us continue to build a team that competes for championships and represents the university at the highest level.”