And in my 257th episode of Conversations, I had the opportunity to speak to an Olympic Gold Medalist:-)
Back in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Games, Melanie Thomas was known as Melanie Valerio (her maiden name) when she was part of the women’s 4×100 meter Gold Medal-winning American team. She was a part of the team two years later that won the Gold at the Swimming World Championships in Perth, Australia, as well.
I’m speaking to Melanie in this episode as part of my ongoing series focusing on fans of the so-called college non-revenue sports. During her college days, Melanie was a 15-time All-American at the University of Virginia back in the early 1990s, was twice named the Cavaliers’ MVP, and was named the 1990 Atlantic Coast Conference Swimmer of the Year. The Cavaliers’ women’s swimming program is notable because it has won the past six consecutive National Championships, including this year’s title by a whopping 208.5 points over runner up Stanford University. Those six straight titles is the most consecutive wins in the history of NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and places UVa in fourth place in overall titles, trailing only Stanford (11), Texas (7), and Georgia (7).
During our time with Melanie, we discuss what led a Youngstown, Ohio, native into the pool in the first place (Spoiler: It’s an older sibling) and then to Charlottesville, Virginia, where she became the UVa’s first Olympic Gold Medalist. We also learn what it’s like to be a high-level swimmer, the regimented lifestyle, and spending 50 years in the pool as a competitive swimmer. Of course, we also discover what it’s like for Melanie to return to Charlottesville these days as one of the program’s original greats and see the success of the current iteration of the Cavaliers.