An NCAA national champion, the first Division III (DIII) athlete to swim on the U.S. Olympic team and winner of the gold medal in men’s 4x100 medley relay in the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, Andrew Wilson (17C) has pushed the lane lines surrounding the stigma many DIII athletes face as the token underdogs of NCAA. He is now part of the first class of 38 athletes joining the College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America’s (CSCAA) new DIII Hall of Fame. CSCAA released the announcement of Wilson’s upcoming induction on Jan. 30, and the formal ceremony will take place on May 6 in Indiana.
Although Wilson’s resume is full of accolades, he said he had to “argue his way” onto Emory University’s men’s swimming and diving team his senior year of high school. Already an accepted student, Wilson was set to be on campus in fall 2013 but wanted to don an Emory swim cap as well. However, Head Coach Jon Howell was not about to hand it to him.
After their initial meeting, Howell said he knew Wilson had the potential, but his race times were not up to the team’s standards. Wilson was not deterred. When he secured his cap a few months later, Howell was not surprised.
“He was really motivated to do what he needed to do to get better and to reach his potential in the sport,” Howell said. “It seemed like an easy risk to take.”
Wilson’s first season was not smooth sailing, however. Previously a multisport athlete of water polo and swimming, Wilson’s freshman year was his first time solely focusing on the latter. He did not make any of the travel squads his first semester and had to work on his technique. Wilson said that if someone told him during freshman year that he would be holding an Olympic gold medal in a few years, he would have “laughed at them.”
“I was definitely playing catch-up from the start,” Wilson said. “I was one of the worst people on the team when I first got there.”
Normally, swimming is not a sport where athletes put extra hours in outside of practice since they are already pushed to their limits during training sessions, Wilson said. He added that there was no “secret” to his success; it was simply a culmination of expert coaching, skilled teammates, hard work and time.
At the beginning of the spring semester of his freshman year, Wilson had a breakout swim. Associate Coach Cindy Fontana described how predicting a swimmer’s post-winter training response is difficult, so their performance in the first meet following training tends to vary. However, when Wilson came off the block that day, she knew something had clicked.
“It was just this awesome swim,” Fontana said. “He was just figuring things out and putting things together.”
From there, Wilson earned a spot on the travel squad, swimming in the conference meet and nationals. Fontana said watching Wilson come into his own in the water, as a teammate and in the classroom was “thrilling.”
Wilson’s improvement came from his high goals and effort during practice.
“His biggest challenge was, he was hard on himself,” Howell said. “When he didn’t accomplish a goal, it was really devastating for him at first.”
Fontana agreed and said that both she and Howell tried to help out all the swimmers both technically and mentally. Putting those two disciplines together is imperative to unlocking full potential in the water.
“Mindset is huge in swimming,” Wilson said. “There’s been so many times where I’ve seen races where I know that the person who wins it really has no business winning it, but they’re just mentally a much stronger competitor.”
During his junior year, Wilson took time off from college to compete in national competitions to qualify for the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics, but he missed earning a spot on the Olympic team by 0.01 seconds. Wilson said he called Howell after that meet and was unsure if he should continue competing in international tournaments, but Howell reminded him of all the work that he put into his swim career at Emory. This phone call motivated Wilson to continue trying and eventually edge out Nic Fink for a spot in the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. Wilson went on to aid the team in securing gold by winning the prelims. Relay team Caeleb Dressel, Ryan Murphy, Michael Andrew and Zach Apple went on to take the top spot, earning the United States a gold medal.
Fontana, whom Wilson referred to as a “mom away from home,” was the first person he called after the Tokyo games. Fontana vividly recalls watching the Olympics with friends while on vacation. She was out for a walk and could not believe Wilson called her from Tokyo.
“This experience really meant so much to him, and it meant so much to us,” Fontana said. “It couldn’t have happened to a better person.”
A year later, Wilson announced his retirement from professional swimming, describing it as “a weird thing to deal with.”
“To be 28 years old and have already had a full career and kind of feel like you’re past your prime … it’s definitely not easy,” Wilson said.
For the headline of his retirement letter, Wilson wrote “officially a has-been,” but for the DIII community, he remains a role model. Fontana said that Wilson is “groundbreaking for being within the DIII world.”
“A lot of people tend to think of DIII as lesser than DI, and I don’t really think of it that way at all,” Wilson said. “Everyone who I trained with at Emory worked as hard or harder than everyone who I trained with that was going to the Olympics.”
Wilson added that there are no athletic scholarships at the DIII level, so everyone is there solely because they love the sport. CSCAA was slow to realize this, having only created the DIII Hall of Fame in 2023. Howell acknowledged that and said he was in favor of any recognition for his athletes because they are “not always in the center of everybody’s attention.”
“[Wilson], like a lot of our swimmers and divers, don’t get the recognition they deserve,” Howell said. “Andrew deserves [the honor] and more. He’s been a remarkable person for us.”
Both Howell and Fontana had been coaching at Emory for over a decade when Wilson first arrived as a freshman. Almost seven years after Wilson’s graduation and close to 20 years of coaching later, the Emory men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams still look to the captain that once stood on deck not too long ago.
“Everyone who I raced against in DIII, they were great competitors but also really awesome people,” Wilson said. “DIII is what made me who I am, and if I can serve as an inspiration for other DIII athletes … it’s an honor.”
While Wilson said that retiring from his swimming career has been difficult, he still continues to push the limits. He earned a master’s degree in mathematical modeling and scientific computing from the University of Oxford in England, where he is currently working as a research software engineer in the department of Earth sciences.
After years of training, Wilson said he is never going to “spend another nice day inside in the pool” but still cherishes the lifelong friendships and mentors he gained from his time at Emory and in the pool.
