TEMPE, Ariz. -- On Monday’s ‘Pac-12 Sports Report’, the conference announced the All-Century Women's Swimming & Diving team -- comprised of 26 swimmers, six divers and one coach -- which included former Sun Devils Agnes Kovacs and Melissa Belote along with current assistant coach Misty Hyman.
Kovacs, a 2015 Sun Devil Hall of Fame inductee, was a 15-time All-American, including four in both her freshman and sophomore years, five during here junior year and two in senior year. She still holds the school record for the 200-yard breaststroke at 2:07.64, and she set multiple other records during her ASU career and still ranks in the top three in four different events. She placed third at the NCAA Championships in the 200-yard breaststroke and fourth in the 100-yard breaststroke as a sophomore in 2002. At the Texas Invitational in 2003, she became the second woman in ASU history to swim under a minute in the 100-yard breaststroke by recording a 59.92.
Besides her individual records, she was on the record-setting 800-meter freestyle relay that broke the school record during the 2004 NCAA tournament. A three-time Olympian for Hungary, she swam for and won a gold medal in the 200-meter breaststroke at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. She also won a bronze medal at the 1996 Olympic Games in the 200-meter breaststroke. She held several long course European records, including the 50-meter (31.34), 100-meter (1:07.79) and 200-meter (2:24.03) breast. She was named Hungary's Woman Sports Athlete of the Year each year from 1997 to 2000. She was also inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2014.
To ensure that the team truly encapsulated the past century of Pac-12 women’s swimming and diving, 10 Pre-Title IX nominees were included on the ballot. These standout swimmers and divers attended Pac-12 universities but did not compete collegiately due to the lack of opportunities for women in intercollegiate athletics at the time.
Belote was one of those athletes, as she competed for Arizona State from 1976-79 and was inducted into the ASU Hall of Fame just two years later in 1981. She tallied four individual championships and one with her teammates in the 400 medley relay, and all four were in different events.
At 15 years old, she won three gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. In the women's 200-meter backstroke, Belote set a new world record of 2:19.19. She won a third gold medal by swimming the lead-off backstroke leg for the winning U.S. team in the women's 4x100 medley relay. She and her teammates set a new world record of 4:20.75 in the relay final as well.
Belote also received the Honda Sports Award for Swimming and Diving, recognizing her as the outstanding college female swimmer of the year in 1976–77. Belote retired from the sport in 1979, and like Kovacs, was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1983. She was also inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1989.
She currently coaches swimming and diving at McClintock High School in Tempe, and also coaches the Rio Salado Swim Team.
While she did not swim as a Sun Devil during her college tenure, Misty Hyman is every bit a Sun Devil now as the current assistant coach.
After graduating from Shadow Mountain High School, Hyman went on to a storied collegiate career at Stanford University where she is a member of the Athletic Hall of Fame. Hyman was a five-time NCAA Champion for the Cardinal and was named the 1998 NCAA Swimmer of the Year. Winning the prestigious Honda award two times as the best female swimmer in the country, Hyman was named one of the 2001 NCAA Top Eight Award winners for athletics, academics, and community service.
While attending Stanford, Hyman also saw concurrent success in national and international competition winning gold medals at the 1998 World Championships, 1999 Pan Pacific Champions, and 2000 Sydney Olympic games. Hyman was a six-time National Champion in the 100-meter butterfly and a seven-time National Champion in the 200-meter butterfly.
All 26 All-Century swimmers competed in at least one Olympiad, and collectively, they have won 101 Olympic medals. In addition, this group represents 110 NCAA individual titles (95 swimming, 15 diving).