Jill Sterkel

Jill Ann Sterkel (born May 27, 1961) is an American former competition swimmer for the University of Texas, an Olympic champion, former world record-holder, and water polo player. Sterkel won four medals in three Olympic Games spanning twelve years from 1976 through 1988, and was the first American woman to qualify for four Olympic games. She later served as the women's head coach for her alma mater, the Texas Longhorns swimming and diving team at the University of Texas at Austin from 1993 to 2006.

Early swimming Sterkel was born in Hacienda Heights, California, where she swam for Glen A. Wilson High School, graduating in 1979. She began swimming with the highly competitive El Monte Aquatics Club around the age of 10 under club founder and Coach Don LaMont and continued through her High School Senior year, officially swimming for the Club outside of the High School swimming season. Her Wilson High School swim team went undefeated through March of her Senior year, with champion swimmer Mary Birdsell as another team member.

University of Texas swimming

Sterkel subsequently attended the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, where she swam under Hall of Fame Coach Richard Quick for the Texas Longhorns swimming and diving team in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) competition from 1980 to 1983.

As a senior in 1983, Sterkel won the NCAA national championships in the 50-yard butterfly (24.26 seconds) and 100-yard butterfly (53.54 seconds). She won back-to-back Honda Sports Awards for Swimming and Diving, recognizing her as the outstanding college female swimmer of 1979–80 and 1980–81. She won sixteen individual national titles with the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) and helped lead the University of Texas Women's team to AIAW national titles in both the 1981 and 1982 seasons. She won a total of 28 awards citing her as an All-American, the maximum that can be awarded to a collegiate swimmer.

1980 Olympics Sterkel qualified again for the U.S. national team at the 1980 U.S. Olympic Trials, but because of the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, she was unable to participate at the 1980 games held in Moscow, Russia.

1984 Olympics At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, she swam for the gold medal-winning U.S. team in the preliminary heats of the women's 4×100-meter freestyle.

Honors She was also inducted into the Southwest Conference Hall of Fame, and in 2017 the American Swimming Coaches Association (ASCA) Hall of Fame.