The Pepperdine Waves women’s swim team made big headlines last year when a $1.6 million check showed up on the coach’s desk anonymously and staved off a cut in the program for at least the next four seasons.
What better way to bring more attention to the program, in hopes of giving it a more permanent solution, than by adding a model to the team? The Pepperdine program is back in the national spotlight after doing just that, by adding 49-year old former fashion model Phyllis Reffo to their roster as a walk-on this season.
Reffo never attended college the first time around, choosing instead to move from her home in Calgary, Canada to Los Angeles to chase a dream of becoming a fashion model. She was quite successful, including traveling around the globe to work with different photographers and designers. She would later work her way into the Canadian finance industry through some independent education courses.
It was the fact that she never attended college the first time that allows this to happen without violating NCAA eligibility rules. Reffo’s swimming abilites were first discovered and cultivated at Santa Monica Junior College, where she caught the eye of the head swim coach Steve Contarsy (and not just because of her model-like physique). She trained and competed with that program for the last two years and is now making the jump to Pepperdine to complete her education. She will have two years of eligibility left.
Pepperdine Team Roster, including 49-year old Phyllis Renfro.
The move from a Junior College to an NCAA Division-I program is a huge leap; notably that the 100 IM and 50 breaststrokes will no longer be event options for Reffo. Those were her two specialties last year with the Santa Monica program. The best times that I can find from her placed her at a 42.41 in the 50 breast and a 1:34.64 in the 100 IM. While those aren’t times that would usually earn a division 1 roster spot, she has a ton of potential, as those are pretty good times for a swimmer with no discernible swimming background until very recently. Pepperdine does have times for comparison, and the times they posted in the 50 breaststroke last year ranged from 30.14 to 40.96, so she’s not too far off of the bottom end of that range.
The transition from “model” to “swimmer” makes sense, given the typical build of the model: long and lean. What’s more, she has every intent on making huge improvements, including recognizing the need for some brush-ups on her technique, so swimming her way to some respectable mid-major times seems feasible.
Still, she’s probably never going to have a huge impact for Pepperdine competitively, but the importance here is the value of an eduaction. After being hit hard by the economic downturn, Reffo realized that the only way she was going to support her two daughters (12 and 14) was by getting an education. She is proof that it’s never too late for anything in life – she’s not only getting a quality education at almost 50, but is doing so while competing as a division I athlete, and that is the message.