With teammates Alex and Gretchen Walsh, UVA swimmer Kate Douglass created the Olympic Endowed Scholarship for Women’s Swimming Fund. Photo: UVA Communications
Olympic champion and American record-holding University of Virginia swimmer Kate Douglass went to her coach, Todd DeSorbo, this past spring to ask how she could compensate him for coaching her.
“I told her that I wasn’t interested in taking her money … I would rather [she] invest back in the team,” he says.
Douglass graduated from UVA in 2023 after a prolific collegiate swimming career, during which she won seven individual national titles and broke several NCAA records. Since graduating, she has stayed in Charlottesville and continues to train at UVA under DeSorbo.
While gearing up for the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore in mid-July, three UVA swimmers made an announcement: The UVA Swimming & Diving program would create the Olympic Endowed Scholarship for Women’s Swimming Fund. The new scholarship is spearheaded by Douglass, with Alex and Gretchen Walsh—all champion UVA swimmers and Olympic medalists.
The fund, which receives a 50 percent match from the Virginia Athletics Foundation, will support a swimmer on the women’s team, building on the team’s legacy.
Douglass says that all three women “felt like this was a great way for us to give back to the program that has given us so much and given us the opportunities that we now have in swimming.”
In 2021, the Cavs won their first NCAA swimming and diving championship, and Alex Walsh and Douglass each took home NCAA gold. Four years later, with Gretchen Walsh on the team, the women earned their fifth consecutive national title, and Douglass and the Walshes hold 11 (of the 19 possible) NCAA records.
Gretchen has graduated and Alex finished her fifth and final year of eligibility, but they will join Douglass and remain at UVA to train for their professional swimming careers. The three collectively brought home five gold and three silver medals (including two relay world records) from the World Aquatics Championships.
The women’s team is showing no sign of slowing down, metaphorically or in the pool, and DeSorbo acknowledges the impact Douglass and the Walsh sibs have made on the aquatics program.
“I think they are well aware of what UVA and our program has done for them … and vice versa,” DeSorbo says. “Their success certainly has helped us continue to recruit at a really high level and continue to be a highly sought-after program for a lot of young athletes. Them giving back like this is pretty impressive.”
DeSorbo, who also coached the three on the 2024 Olympic swim team, is excited that the trio is sticking around. But even more, he admires their commitment to give back to the team.
“The most special part about [this is] it provides even more evidence that they had a great experience, they enjoyed their time here, they’re happy with their experience at UVA as a whole with our swimming program and the athletic department,” DeSorbo adds.
The scholarship will also receive outside donations.
“Hopefully other swimmers coming out of UVA after they graduate, whether they’re Olympians or not, [will] think about donating to this scholarship and … add more funds to it,” Douglass says. “We thought this scholarship was a great way to leave our legacy in the team because years from now we’re going to be very far removed from UVA swim and dive. This was kind of a way to keep us involved.”
On the other side of the pool, the UVA men’s swim team is also celebrating recent financial gains, thanks to an
August 5 anonymous $2.2 million donation, the largest gift in program history.
“This gift couldn’t come at a more pivotal time,” DeSorbo told Virginia Sports of the gift. “We’re bringing in what I believe is the best recruiting class in the country, and maybe one of the best in NCAA history. This support will help us continue to build a team that competes for championships and represents the university at the highest level.”
