Troy Tabbed as SEC Women's Swimming Coach of the Year
Tuesday, February 26, 2008 | Women's Swimming & Diving
University of Florida women's swimming head coach Gregg Troy has been named the Southeastern Conference Women's Swimming Coach of the Year as announced by the league office.
Troy was honored by his peers for the outstanding job his did this season with the third ranked women's swimming program. Troy led his Gators to an 11-1 overall record during the dual meet season and a second place finish at the SEC meet last week. The Gators have now won at least 10 dual meets three years in a row and seven of the last eight years. Since he took over the program in 1998, Troy's teams have failed to get to the 10-win point just three times, each season winning nine meets.
The second place showing by this year's team at the SEC meet marks the highest finish by a Gator women's squad since 2003 when the team also finished second. This is the first Women's Swimming Coach of the Year award for Troy, who was named the Men's Swimming Coach of the Year in 2007, and fourth overall.
During the course of this year's championships, Troy saw three of his female athletes break school records. Caroline Burckle, Gemma Spofforth and Stephanie Napier each rewrote the record books last week. Burckle, who nearly broke Janet Evans' NCAA record in the 500 freestyle, became the second fastest collegian to ever swim the race with a time of 4:34.87, smashing both records by nearly four seconds. The old school record, held by Tami Bruce, had been in place since 1988. Spofforth broke her own UF records in the 100 and 200 back, doing so in SEC record breaking fashion as well. Along the way, Spofforth became just the second swimmer to ever swim under the 52 second mark in the 100 back, doing so twice on the third day of the meet, once in the finals and again during the 400 medley relay. Napier came alive in the 50 free to break four-time Olympian Dara Torres' record that has been in place since 1988. The women's 200 medley relay team of Spofforth, Burckle, Colleen Healy and Napier kicked off the meet, breaking the school and SEC record with a time of 1:37.23.
Both the Florida women and men will go on to compete at the 2008 NCAA Championships. The women will take center stage first, traveling to Columbus, Ohio for the meet set from March 20-22. The men will take on the competition in Federal Way, Washington from March 27-29.
