Tracy Caulkins

High school

Harpeth Hall School

College

University of Florida

Hall of Fame

⭐ International Swimming Hall of Fame

Tracy Ann Caulkins was born on January 11, 1963, in Winona, Minnesota, but grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, where she attended the Harpeth Hall School — one of Nashville's elite all-girls preparatory institutions — and developed into the greatest American female swimmer of the 20th century. Between 1977 and 1984, Caulkins won 48 U.S. national championship titles — a record that still stands — and set 63 U.S. records in all four swimming strokes and in the individual medley events, a versatility across disciplines that no other elite swimmer in history has matched. The 1980 U.S. Olympic boycott of the Moscow Games cost her almost certain gold medals at what should have been her showcase. She persevered and at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics won three gold medals: the 200-meter individual medley, the 400-meter individual medley, and the 4×100-meter medley relay. She was named Female Swimmer of the Year six times by Swimming World magazine and won the Sullivan Award in 1978 as the best amateur athlete in America — at age 15. She swam collegiately at the University of Florida. She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1990. Grew up in Nashville, Tennessee.