Five-time Olympian, 12-time Olympic medalist, 21-time SEC Champion at Florida, and 12-time NCAA Champion (three as an individual), Dara Torres has been selected as one of six recipients of the 2014 Silver Anniversary Award. She was also a one-year NCAA volleyball player at Florida.
This award is given out annually to former NCAA athletes on the 25th anniversary of completing their collegiate athletic careers, and is voted on by an Honors Committee. The award is honored for both athletic and non-athletic achievements after graduation.
Torres sits among lofty company in the class of 1989. It includes:
- Pro Football Hall of Fame Quarterback Troy Aikman (UCLA – football)
- 1988 Heisman Trophy runner-up, and currently the president of an entertainment and investment firm, Rodney Peete (USC – baseball and football)
- Earl Martin Phalen, founder and CEO of Summer Advantage USA, a summer reading program, among other major foundations (Yale – basketball)
- George Pyne, who spent 11 years as the COO of NASCAR (Brown – football)
- Katey Stone, the winningest coach in the history of Division I women’s ice hockey, and the head coach of the 2014 Olympic ice hockey team (New Hampshire – ice hockey, lacrosse)
Torres is the first swimmer to be honored since the class of 2010 that included Maureen O’Toole-Purcell, a former swimmer at Hawaii.
