Jill Sterkel

Background

Sterkel was born in Hacienda Heights, California.

Education

She graduated from Glen A. Wilson High School in Hacienda Heights. She subsequently attended the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, where she swam for the Texas Longhorns swimming and diving team in Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) and National Collegiate Athletic Association (National Collegiate Athletic Association) competition from 1980 to 1983.

Career

She was the women"s head coach of the Texas Longhorns swimming and diving team at the University of Texas at Austin from 1992 to 2007. Sterkel represented the United States in three Summer Olympics. Individually, she competed in two other events, finishing seventh in the 100-meter freestyle and not advancing beyond the preliminary heats in the 200-meter freestyle.

Sterkel qualified again for the United States. national team at the 1980 United States. 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.

At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, she swam for the gold medal-winning United States. team in the preliminary heats of the women"s 4×100-meter freestyle. As a 27-year-old at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South of Korea, she again swam for the United States. team in the preliminary heats of the 4×100-meter freestyle relay, and earned a bronze medal for the team"s third-place finish.

Achievements

• Sterkel won four medals in three Olympic Games spanning twelve years. As a senior in 1983, Sterkel won the National Collegiate Athletic Association national championships in 50-yard butterfly (2426 seconds) and 100-yard butterfly (5354 seconds). She won back-to-back Honda Sports Awards for Swimming and Diving, recognizing her as the outstanding college female swimmer of 1979-1980 and 1980-1981. As a 15-year-old at the 1976 Summer Olympics, she won a gold medal as a member of the winning United States. team in the women"s 4×100-meter freestyle relay, together with her teammates Kim Peyton, Wendy Boglioli and Shirley Babashoff. After the United States. women"s team had been outshone in nearly every event by their East German rivals, Peyton, Boglioli, Sterkel and Babashoff achieved a moral victory by not only winning the relay gold medal, but also by breaking the East Germans" world record in the event final. Starting at the 1984 games, relay swimmers who swam in the heats, but did not compete in the event finals, were eligible to receive medals.