The Texas Swimming & Diving Hall of Fame has announced four inductees into its class of 2025. The class will be inducted at a reception at the San Jacinto Ballroom on the University of Texas campus on April 25th.
The inductees are Donn Boyd, Collen Lanné Cox, Richard Sybesma, and John Webb. Also recognized in this year’s awards is FLEET as the Wally Pryor Distinguished Team, and Janet Gabriel, who will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Boyd is a founding director of the Hall of Fame. He swam and played water polo at Texas A&M, and eventually made his mark as the swimming, diving, and water polo coach at La Marque High School.
Cox was a four-time NCAA Champion and American Record holder at the University of Texas; she won three medals (including two golds) at the Pan American Games representing the U.S., and also won relay silver medals at the Short Course World Championships, Long Course World Championships, and on the US 400 free relay at the 2004 Olympic Games.
Sybesma swam in high school in the small West Texas town of Andrews and was a co-captain in his junior and senior seasons at Texas Tech. He then became the head swim coach at TCU for 38 years, making him the longest tenured head coach in school history.
Webb was an Indiana High School State Champion and swam for the famed Doc Counsilman at Indiana State, where he was an NAIA and NCAA (college division) All-American. He then earned a masters at Indiana University while coaching under the legendary Doc Counsilman.
He eventually made his way to the Houston area, where he became the head coach for Pearland ISD. He then became the head coach at Cy Creek High School in 1980, where he eventually became the president of NISCA. Besides coaching swimming, he also built Cypress Creek’s water polo program into the best in the state of Texas and one of the best in the country. He also coached swimming Olympic medalist Jamie Rauch in high school.
Full Bios Below, courtesy Texas Swimming & Diving Hall of Fame.
Donn Boyd
Donn Boyd is a Native Texan born in Austin, Texas in 1947 and is a lifetime contributor to Aquatics in Texas and is a founding director of the Texas Swimming and Diving Hall of Fame. He graduated from Killeen High School and was a member of the Texas A&M Aggie swimming and water polo teams. After graduating Donn served as an assistant coach for TSDHOF honoree Art Adamson.
Donn was the swimming, diving and water polo coach at La Marque High School from 1970 to 1978. In 1978, he moved to San Antonio where he has been involved in every aspect of aquatics in the region. Donn served as the Northside School District’s head coach, assistant coach and mentor for swimmers, divers and water polo players. In addition to coaching, Donn served as a public-school teacher, lifeguard instructor, learn to swim director, pool manager and official for swimming, diving and water polo. He served for 18 years as the NISCA Water Polo All America Chairman.
Donn Boyd’s awards include: two- time winner of the Texas Boy’s Water Polo Coach of the Year, NISCA Outstanding Service Award, the TISCA Female Water Polo MVP Award which is now named in his honor and The Dee Hollar Memorial for Texas Swimming and Diving High School Officials Award of Excellence.
Richard Sybesma
Richard Sybesma grew up in the West Texas town of Andrews, where he was a two-time Texas State high school swimming qualifier in 1970-71. Richard swam for Texas Tech University from 1971-75 and as a Red Raider, was elected Co-Captain his Junior and Senior years. During those years he received the Team Spirit and Leadership Awards. His first coaching job brought him to Monahan’s, Texas, where a new indoor pool was just completed. The club and high school teams excelled, winning three 3A and under state titles.
Richard was hired in 1979 as the Head Swim Coach at TCU and held that position for 38 years, becoming the longest tenured head coach in school history! During Richard’s time at TCU, he earned five Conference Coach of the Year honors as well as was Coach of the Year for all Sports in Conference USA in 2004. He coached four Olympians, 7 national champions, 18 All-Americans, and 7 conference team championships.
In 1996 he coached Water Soza and the Nicaraguan Olympic team in Atlanta and in 2001 Richard participated in the Olympic torch relay for the Salt Lake City games.
Coach Sybesma earned his master’s degree in 1992 and has an endowed scholarship set up in his name at TCU. Sybesma received the Master Coach Award given by the College Swim Coaches Association. Richard has conducted clinics for NISCA, and CSCAA. During his career he led the Horned Frogs in 5 different conferences SWC, WAC, USA, MWC, and Big 12.
During his time in Fort Worth, Richard was credited with giving back to the community by teaching over 15,000 children with a learn to swim program at TCU. His program Fort Worth Swimming Frogs is credited for giving over 4,000 swimming lessons to lower economic children through the Rainwater Foundation.
Richard has two daughters, Courtney and Katy, and he and his wife Wendy have 9 grandchildren.
John Webb
John Webb grew up in New Albany, Indiana where he was the 100-yard freestyle high school State Champion during his senior year at New Albany High School. He accepted a swimming scholarship to Indiana State University and was a NAIA and NCAA (college division) All-American. When John graduated, he held no less than seven ISU swimming records!
John began coaching at Central High School in South Bend, Indiana where he developed another State swimming record holder in the 50 freestyle. John then started a new swimming program at Decatur High School in Indianapolis and after two years there, became a graduate assistant at IU. John had the opportunity to study under the legendary Coach “Doc” Counsilman. John became involved in masters swimming and won the 200-yard backstroke at the national masters meet in 1971.
After earning his master’s degree at Indiana, he accepted a job at Clinton High School in Iowa where he brought the swimming program back to a respected competitive level. After four years at Clinton HS, he was named the aquatics coordinator for the Pasadena Independent School District in Pasadena, Texas. John had his work cut out as none of the four PISD schools had ever won any team title or qualified any swimmers to the UIL state swimming meet. In John’s final year of coaching there, the boys’ team at Pasadena High School won the Region meet beating Bellaire HS and qualified 19 swimmers from PISD to the state meet.
John then accepted the head swimming coach position at Cypress Creek High School in 1980 and became involved at the national level through NISCA and as the Special Projects chairman, he organized the first coaching clinics at the NISCA national meetings. He was voted as President of NISCA in 1983 and was awarded the Outstanding Service award in 1986. It was at Cypress Creek that his talents would allow him to develop a program that became one of the most successful programs in water polo and swimming in the nation. His 23 years at Cypress Creek produced more than 200 All-Americans in both sports. His boys’ team won back-to-back national titles.
Two of the most memorable coaching accomplishments in his career were coaching his son, Mike, to high school All-American status in both water polo and swimming, and coaching Jamie Rauch, who won a silver medal at the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney.
At retirement, John focused on water polo officiating. He organized and developed a state-wide water polo officials’ organization that was instrumental in supporting the UIL to recognize water polo as a bona fide UIL sport.
Colleen Lanné Cox
Colleen Lanne` Cox was raised in Tucson, Arizona and attended the University of Texas 1998-2001. Colleen had a fantastic swimming career at Texas. She was a four-time NCAA Champion, held American and US Open records in the 100 free and won individual NCAA titles in the 50 and 100 Free. During her time at Texas, she was a 22 time All-American and two-time Big 12 Swimmer of the Year.
In 2002, Colleen was a silver medalist in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay at the Short Course World Championships held in Moscow. She won a silver in the 200-meter freestyle, as well as gold medals in the 4×100-meter and 4×200-meter freestyle relays at the 2003 Pan American Games held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Colleen qualified for the 2004 U.S. Olympic team in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay after finishing fifth in the 100-meter freestyle at the Olympic Trials. She earned a silver medal in Athens, Greece by swimming for the second-place U.S. team in the preliminary heats of the 400 Freestyle relay.
Colleen lives in Austin and has two sons, Rowan (17) and Rhett (14).
Lifetime Achievement Award
Janet Gabriel is an accomplished diver from Indiana where she trained under legendary Indiana University diving coach, Hobie Billingsley. Janet had numerous diving achievements collegiately and internationally before starting her career as a diving and gymnastics coach with Pauline Barr at Hockaday School in Dallas. When the Texas Swimming Center (TSC) was completed, Janet was hired to coach the Longhorn Aquatics Age Group Diving Club from 1977-1986. She coached many champion divers there including Jason Rhodes and Sherrie Wiggington. She coached her age group team to ten Texas Age Group State Team Championships and was voted Texas Age Group Coach of the Year in 1986. During the Olympic Trials, which were held at the TSC in 1980, Janet filmed divers entries both above and below water for her master’s thesis which was titled Biomechanical Analysis of the Rip Entry in Competitive Entry. Over the decades, Janet wrote a multitude of essays, research reports, articles, manuals and scientific studies all to further the sport of diving. She worked on two post 1996 Olympics projects, the Technoscience Seminar for Coaches (1997) and Behavior Modeling facilitator training. She was the project director for the Biomechanics of Competitive Diving authored by Doris I Miller, Ph.D. and from 2003-08 Janet was an independent contractor for USA Diving. Janet served on the Performance Enhancement Team (PET) under USA Diving’s High-Performance Director, Ron O’Brien and worked with the PET bio mechanists to video tape and analyze athletes’ performances in preparation for the Olympic Games. Janet was presented with an Olympic ring in appreciation for her accuracy in predicting spot-on the Olympic Medal winning point totals. She has been the Head Diving Coach at the Pine Crest School in Ft. Lauderdale since 2008.
Janet has one daughter, Maya Carroll, a graduate of the Pine Crest School, Florida State University-BFA-Graphic Design, and FAU-MS -Information Technology.
Janet Gabriel’s work continues to be referenced to this very day and her contributions to Texas diving will be everlasting.
Wally Pryor Distinguished Team
Cypress-Fairbanks Swim Club
Celebrating 50 years in 2025! It all began in 1975, when a pilot program was initiated using the Bleyl Junior High School facilities for training. This pilot program was well accepted, but the school district’s rapid growth made it impossible to conduct a twelve-month program. The school district then conducted a survey of swim programs in other areas and concluded that survey by making available the school’s facilities to a parent group; this parent group would continue to be responsible for establishing and maintaining a year-round program. The first group was formed in January 1976 under the name” Cypress Fairbanks Swim Club”.
Team practices commenced in February of 1976 and the first permanent coach was hired in April. In July the Club was accepted for membership in the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), the predecessor of USA Swimming. In the spring of 1977, a full-time assistant coach was hired—all of which is indicative of the “FLEET’S” growth and success.
In 1986 Clayton Cagle was hired as FLEET’s Head Coach. The program slowly began to attract talent, but the biggest jump came in 1988, when both Jeremy McDonnall (who went on to become a 13-time All-American at the University of Tennessee) and Andrew Livingston (a 2-time Olympian) joined the team. Two club members have already been inducted into the TSDHOF; Jamie Rauch (18-Time All-American at Texas and Silver medalist at the 2000 Olympics) and Cammille Adams (2-time Olympian in 2012 and Team captain in 2016). Other notable swimmers through the years include Dave Durden (Current University of California Coach), Leslie Lunsmann, Joe Montague, Julie Galloway, Neil Caskey, Charlie Moore, Cole Cragin, James Galloway and Thomas Bishop.
Today, in addition to the full-time Head Coach and the Head Age Group Coach, there are several other coaches who contribute to the “FLEET’S” success. In June of 1999, the Cypress Fairbanks Swim Club proudly announced the opening of its own 50-meter facility in Northwest Houston, now the focal point of our program. The club continued its expansion in 2001 with the construction of the first FLEET First learn-to-swim facility on our Spring Cypress Road property. The club opened a 4700 square foot office and locker room facility in 2005 to further meet our club’s needs. Then, in 2007, FLEET opened a new indoor, heated Learn-To-Swim facility called the FLEET FIRST Aquatic Center. FLEET continued its expansion in 2009 when opening the 8,000 square foot dry-land training facility on the property. With our vision limitless, FLEET will continue to fulfill its mission of providing an environment where swimmers of all ages can reach their desired potential based on a philosophy of “longer range development”.
As a member of Gulf Swimming and a USA Swimming Bronze Medal Club, the goal of Cy-Fair Swim Club is to provide every member an opportunity to improve their swimming skills, achieve success at his or her level of ability, from novice to international competitor. All of our coaches, as members of the American Swim Coaches Association, have access to the most comprehensive training and certification program for youth coaches of any sport in the United States. They provide assurances that the time children spend swimming will be quality time.
Proud to know you have been such a contributor, Janet.
Congrats Colleen!
Congrats Richard, well deserved!