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About Alaska Swimming Alaska Swimming is an NCAA Division II Women's swim team. In 2004, based on a University of Alaska Board of Regents' resolution addressing the need for a tenth team sport at UAF (the NCAA's minimum requirement to be a Division II school), Alaska's Athletic Department decided to reinstate swimming. The sport of swimming was chosen, in part, due to the success it enjoyed both at the club and high school levels in Alaska, making the recruitment of student-athletes from within the state likely. It was also crucial to the decision to choose swimming that a training/competition facility already existed on campus - Patty Pool. Finally, due to the need for more gender equity within the athletic department (a Title IX requirement), it was determined the newest sport on campus would be a women's team. In January, 2005, former UAF Athletic Director, Dr. Cory Schwartz, hired veteran Alaskan swim coach, Scott Lemley, to build the new program. Lemley had started a team at UAF once before when he coached the University's mixed Men's and Women's Swim Team from 1982 to 1987. In the final year of that program Nanook freshman Andrew Billings represented Alaska at the NCAA Division II National Swimming and Diving Championships. He became the fastest DII freshman in the nation when he was named an All-American in the 50 and 100 yard Freestyles and an Honorable Mention All-American in the 200 yard Freestyle. He was a graduate of West Valley High School in Fairbanks. Prior to the NCAA team in the mid-80s, collegiate swimming existed on the UAF campus in the form of an NAIA Men's and Women's team from 1968 through 1973. Lemley was a swimmer on that team from 1970-73.
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Women's Swimming |
The University of Alaska Fairbanks is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. UAF is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and educational institution.
Last updated by Scott Lemley. |