Florida Gulf Coast University hosted its athletic department awards night this week, and senior swimmer Emma Svensson won the school’s highest honor, the Eagle Scholar Athlete Award.
Svensson and softball player Kelsey Carpenter were selected for the award, which honors students for a combination of athletic success, academic excellence and community service.
Svensson capped off a stellar Eagles career by helping FGCU scores its first-ever relay points at the NCAA Championships this year, and she also scored individually in the 50 free. Svensson became the first Florida Gulf Coast swimmer ever under 22 seconds in the 50 free, and also broke the conference record while being named Most Outstanding Swimmer at the CCSA Championship meet.
The FGCU press release features the following run-down of Svensson’s career, both athletically and academically:
Svensson has maintained a 3.89 GPA as an economics major and an honors student at the same time as she has set multiple program records in the pool.
The Swede became the team captain in 2013 and has been a mainstay on FGCU’s President List for the last three years. Svensson was a research assistant for the FGCU Honors Program last year while having a concentration on the Eurozone crisis and finding business applications of calculus and behavioral economics. The mathmatics minor has spent her time volunteering in the community through the FGCU Actuarial Science Club, Hope for Haiti and Mesina Children’s Hospital.
As a freshman in 2011-12, Svensson became the first Eagles’ swimmer to qualify for the NCAA Championships. She was named a Mid-Major All-American and earned CCSA All-Conference honors in addition to being honored as CCSA’s Most Outstanding Female Freshman Performer of the Championship Meet.
Her dominance continued throughout her sophomore campaign as she was selected as the NCAA Elite 89 Award Winner, again qualifying for the NCAA Championships while maintaining a 4.0 GPA and notching her first CCSA Swimmer of the Year award.
She followed the impressive performance with a 2013-14 that saw her receive College Swimming Coaches Association of America Honorable Mention All-America and set six FGCU program records: two individually (50 free (22.09), 100 free (49.13)) and four as a member of a relay team (200 free (1:30.24), 400 free (3:20.13), 200 medley (1:38.63), 400 medley (3:40.69)). Her performances in the 50 free and 400 free relays also set CCSA records. At the NCAA Championships, she scored FGCU points for the first time in program history, placing 12th in the 50-yard freestyle with a 22.33 time.
This season, the standout continued her spree of shattering records at the 2015 CCSA Championship meet, breaking her own mark in the 50 free with a CCSA and FGCU-program record time of 21.98. She was named CCSA Women’s Most Outstanding Swimmer of the Championship Meet. At the NCAA Championships, she scored FGCU’s first points of the meet, placing 12th in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 22.12. Svensson also helped the Eagles earn their first-ever points in a relay event when the 200-yard team touched the pads in a time of 1:37.55 to finish eighth. She helped guide FGCU to a best-ever finish of 26th in the nation, perfectly accentuating her stellar athletic and academic career.
“Emma has been a leader of our program by example and as the team-voted captain,” said head coach Neal Studd. “She has been a leader in the classroom, pool, community and campus. She will be remembered as the most successful swimmer in FGCU history and one of the NCAA’s great student-athletes – a true female success story on every level. I have never come across a person who is more humble, selfless and a down-right nice person than Emma.”