Arizona’s Lara Jackson helped the Wildcats win the 2008 NCAA championship.
At the 2008 U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials in Omaha, Nebraska, I watched a thrilling finish to the women’s 50-meter freestyle preliminaries when Arizona All-American Lara Jackson set an American record. She went on to win nine NCAA championships at Arizona and was inducted into the UA’s Sports Hall of Fame two years ago. Jackson was about a finger’s length away from making the 2008 and 2012 USA Olympic team, and thereafter retired and became a coach in France. Last week, Jackson returned to NCAA swimming as an assistant coach at Florida Gulf Coast University. Her boss is FGCU head coach Dave Rollins, a UA All-American and former standout at Sabino High School.
