Photo - UK Athletics
Thank you Asia Seidt. During my 45 plus years covering University of Kentucky athletes I’ve been lucky enough to interview a lot of terrific athletes and share their stories about their wins and championships — or efforts just to be in position to compete for championships.
However, I’m not sure I’ve ever interviewed a more impressive athlete than Kentucky swimmer Asia Seidt.
She’s the most decorated swimmer in UK history and only added to her legacy Friday when she was named the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year. This national award starts with over 600 candidates before being narrowed to nine finalists.
Seist is the first Kentucky athlete to be named NCAA Woman of the Year — and there may never be another one. Or at least not in my lifetime. That’s how hard this award is to win.
In the pool, Seidt was exceptional. She holds more Kentucky records than any other swimmer or diver and has more All-America honors (21), NCAA Championship podium finishes (8), SEC Championship medals (15) and All-SEC selections (3) than any UK swimmer. She also won a USA Swimming Summer National gold medal and one World University Games silver medal to go with four SEC individual titles.
Here’s what makes her even more impressive — and to me an easy choice for NCAA Woman of the Year. She kept a perfect 4.0 cumulative grade-point average at UK and now is enrolled in UK’s Physical Therapy Graduate Program. She was the 2020 CoSIDA At-Large Scholar-Athlete of the Year, 2019 Arthur Ashe Female Sports Scholar of the Year and 2020 SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year for obvious reasons.
She also volunteered over 450 hours of professional shadowing and more than 200 hours of community service with various charitable organizations in Lexington.
Not bad for an athlete who was not sure she was even good enough to swim at Kentucky or was so shy she didn’t even want to do interviews her first couple of years at Kentucky.
Seidt never got the attention or headlines a basketball or football player would have for piling up similar honors to what she did. It never bothered her. She just wanted to compete, help her team and enjoy her teammates.
But now Seidt has accomplished something no other female athlete at UK ever has and left a legacy of success and perfection.
How big was this? Well, among those congratulating her on Twitter after the announcement was Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari and that probably put more eyes on what she had done than anything before ever had.
