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  UCLA Sports Information Junior Katie Younglove is known for her extreme dedication, both to the UCLA swimming and diving team and to her academics.

By Scott Schultz

Daily Bruin Contributor

When it comes to being a dedicated student-athlete, junior swimmer Katie Younglove is proficient enough to teach a seminar on the subject.

In the four years that the swimming and diving team has given out the award for Most Dedicated Athlete, Younglove has won the award three times. This season she added the Student-Athlete Award as well.

Younglove is dedicated to fulfilling the expectations of a UCLA student-athlete.

As a swimmer, she has improved her times in each of her three seasons. She has earned All-American accolades for the butterfly and her contributions to the relay teams twice. She is expecting to win the honors again this season.

“She is a quiet leader,” UCLA Head Coach Cyndi Gallagher said. “She doesn’t swim particularly fast in season, but at the NCAAs she always rises to the occasion.”

“I don’t think she has missed five practices in her three years,” Gallagher added.

As a student, Younglove has earned a hearty 3.8 GPA despite maintaining a grueling two-a-day practice schedule, and hopes to attend architecture school after she graduates.

“Katie has mastered time management. She has her papers and school work done in advance,” Bruin co-captain Brighid Dwyer said. “She focuses on something and gets it done.”

The objective of balancing both obligations requires intensive amounts of energy to succeed. Younglove acknowledges that sometimes it can be difficult.

“This week I haven’t even thought about the championship meet,” Younglove said. “I’ve had so much work to catch up on and then to get ahead.”

For Younglove “getting ahead” means turning in term papers a week early and faxing final exams from the road. She says that the professors are typically supportive, provided they are approached early in the semester.

“I tell my professors during the first week of classes the dates that I will be on the road,” Younglove said. “You definitely don’t want to tell them at 10th week.”

Her teammates believe that it is her ability to organize all her various tasks that allows her to achieve on such a high level.

“Katie has this schedule, and she just sticks to it without deviating an inch from her plan,” teammate and former roommate Beth Goodwin said. “She is one of the most focused people any of us know.”

Younglove’s parents are also dedicated to the UCLA swimmers. They drive all the way from their residence in Sacramento for every home meet.

It was Younglove’s father who first discovered the scoring glitch at the Pac-10 Championships that enabled the Bruins to win their first conference title. When the Pac-10s took place on Feb. 24, UCLA originally took second behind Arizona. Younglove’s father figured out that the computer had forgotten to include the scores of divers who placed from ninth to 24th, where all of the Bruin divers had placed.

“He called me when we got home, and he said, ‘I think you guys would have won if they counted the diving,” Younglove said. “I think he put it on a spreadsheet and everything.”

Although Younglove takes her academics and post-graduate goals seriously, she says that winning the Pac-10 championship has been her most rewarding experience at UCLA.

“Winning Pac-10 meant more to me than either of the quarters where I achieved a 4.0 GPA,” Younglove said. “Pac-10 is special because it was a whole team effort, and we could all celebrate together. Grades are individual.”

One irony involving Younglove’s two 4.0 quarters is that they both occurred during the winter when the swim season occurs, so she has been able to achieve the most success when she has been at her busiest.

Younglove’s positive influence on her teammates is an important reason why the swimming and diving team has the highest GPA of UCLA teams with more than 30 athletes. Her influence is also one of the reasons the team is entering the NCAAs as Pac-10 champions.

She keeps a watchful eye on the freshmen, especially on the road, and her work habits have rubbed off on the veteran swimmers as well.

“I would see how much time she’d put toward her school, and it definitely impacted me,” Goodwin said. “My grades have improved since I lived with her.”

Regardless of how Younglove and her teammates perform at the NCAAs this weekend, upon her return to Los Angeles, she will be focused on her final exams and preparing for next season.

“I hope to experience all there is to do while I’m at UCLA,” Younglove said. “I want to make the most of my time here, and not miss anything. There’s a lot to do at UCLA.”

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