Catherine Fox

Early swimming After moving to Kansas City in 1980 from Washington D.C., Fox grew up in Roeland Park, Kansas, and attended high school at Bishop Miege, graduating in 1996, though she did not swim for the school. She began swimming around the age of 9 with her hometown club, the Roeland Park Stingrays. She swam for the highly competitive Kansas City Blazers swim club, under Head Coach Pete Malone during her High School years, from 1988 to 1996.

She attended and swam for Stanford University under Hall of Fame Coach Richard Quick, graduating in 2000 while majoring in human biology and studio art. At Stanford, Fox was a 21-time All-American in swimming, a nine-time NCAA champion, and set an American record in the 100-yard backstroke in 1999 with a time of 52.47 seconds. At the 1996 Spring National Championships, Catherine finished sixth in the 50-meter freestyle, third in the 100-meter freestyle, and fourth in the 100-meter backstroke.

At only 18, she made the U.S. Olympic team for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta as a freestyle swimmer, and was a member of two gold-winning relay teams: the 4×100-meter freestyle where she swam in the final defeating China and Germany with a combined U.S. team time of 3:39.29 and the 4×100-meter medley where she swam freestyle in a preliminary heat.

In the 2000 Olympic trials in August 2000, Catherine tried out for the Women's 100-meter freestyle, but was tenth in the preliminaries with a 56.36, and 15 in the semi-finals with a 56.70, and did not advance to the finals.

Honors In 2006, she was named to the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame.