Athletics is an integral part of the UMW community. This spring semester alone we’ve had the excitement of both men’s and women’s swimming winning the Capital Athletic Conference championships for the 15^th and 25^th consecutive times, respectively, PLUS swimmer Alex Anderson winning his 4^th national championship! Student-athletes at UMW receive no scholarship money for athletics—they play for the love of their sport!

Today we hear from freshman swimmer Kenyon Huber-Wilker. Kenyon is an International Relations major from Alexandria, VA. Here’s why Kenyon chose to swim for DIII University of Mary Washington.

Before coming to UMW I had always heard the saying 21 sports, 1 team. I always wondered what exactly that meant. I had originally committed to swim at another school, but after hearing [Coach] Abby [Brethauer] preach the unity of not only the team but of the entire athletic department, I decided that UMW was the place for me. In my first year here I’ve noticed the commitment to each student-athlete from the coaching staff, the trainers, and everyone else in the department. As a DIII athlete there’s not the glamour that you find at large DI schools, however, here more than anywhere else I see students playing sports because they love them and not because of some huge scholarship hanging over their head, or using the school as a pit stop before going pro. I couldn’t be happier with how great my academic experience here has been, almost all of my classes are under 25 students which give me a chance to get to know my professor and work out any sports related conflicts with them. On top of that, even my larger classes, which rarely have over 60 people, still offer an intimate environment where the teachers still know my name and hold me accountable for not only coming to class but being an active participant in it. While we may be a DIII school, in my opinion we still have some of the best facilities that I have ever seen. Goolrick Natatorium where we train and race is a unique environment where we haven’t lost a meet in a long time thanks in a large part to the support of Students and Alumni turning out every weekend to support us. Seeing other sports teams and alumni at our meet reminds me that we truly are 21 sports and 1 team.