A Word from the President - Villanova University

graduated from Villanova in 2007 after
earning Most Valuable Player award for the
season, as well as the BIG EAST Championship
in the 200 meter butterfly. Lennox
qualified to represent Puerto Rico after racing
in a meet sanctioned by the Fédération
Internationale de Natation (FINA), the
international governing body of amateur
swimming, diving, water polo, synchronized
swimming and open water swimming.
Lennox’s younger brother, Doug, also
swam for Puerto Rico in the 2008 Olympics.
“Doug contacted the Puerto Rican Federation
about representing the island,” Lennox
explained. “Once he established himself,
the Federation contacted me and asked
me to be on the national team as well.”
“Proud to Be a Villanovan”
As her fellow Villanova alums prepared
for another Olympic Games in Asia
20 years after Seoul, Huber Rudawsky
recalled the excitement of that trip, which
included a stop at Disneyland in Tokyo.
“I think being [young and] so naive totally
worked to my benefit,” she recalled
with a smile.
When she returned to campus that
October, she prepared for the winter track
Two-time Olympian Vicki Huber Rudawsky
and her teammates won many Penn Relays
championships for Villanova.
season, worked in the campus ticket office
and “just wanted to fit back into the
dynamics of the team.”
During the year that followed, Huber
Rudawsky and her teammates won Penn
Relays Championships, as well as the first
of what would be six consecutive Division I
Women’s Cross Country Championships.
While she went on to earn more NCAA
individual titles—as well as a hard-won
return trip to the Olympics in 1996, as a
29-year-old new mother—she said the team
titles in college were especially memorable.
“When my teammates and I went to
meets and felt ‘proud to be a Villanovan,’
it wasn’t cockiness, but a confidence,” she
recalled. “It was, ‘Villanova’s here, and
you’re going to have to run fast to beat us.’”
It is that pride and camaraderie that
have helped Villanova produce so many
Olympians over the years, according
to Huber Rudawsky.
“At Villanova, you are blessed to have
so many great athletes as teammates. For
me, it was Kathy Franey Fleming [’89
A&S], Celeste Halliday Over [’88 VSB]
and Debbie Grant Marshall [’87 C.E., ’94
G.S.],” she recalled. “They are the ones
who made me who I was—and helped me
get to the Olympics.”
Charlie Jenkins ’58 VSB won two gold medals
at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia.
Olympic Fast Facts
By Holly Stratts
n Dave Patrick ’68 VSB and Phil
Reavis ’56 A&S have both graced the
cover of Sports Illustrated during their
careers but without the associated SI
cover jinx.
n In 1956, Ron Delaney ’58 A&S
and Charlie Jenkins ’58 VSB became
the first Villanova athletes to win
Olympic medals. Delaney took gold in
the 1,500 meter race that many
described as the best in history. Jenkins
is the only two-time gold medalist
in Villanova history. He competed
in the 400 meter and the 1,600 meter
relay, taking gold in each event.
n Ireland’s Sonia O’Sullivan ’92 VSB
is one of three four-time
Olympians from Villanova.
She became the
school’s first female
athlete to win a medal
when she won silver in
the 5,000 meters at the
2000 Summer Games.
n During the 2000 Summer Games,
baseball outfielder Mike Neill ’92
VSB hit the game-winning home run
for the United States to beat Japan to
make it to the gold-medal game.
There, he made a sliding catch for the
last out against Cuba.
n Like his father Charlie Jenkins ’58
VSB had done 36 years before him,
Chip Jenkins ’86 VSB went to the
Olympics and came away with a gold
medal, this one in the 1,600 meter
relay in 1992.
n Four-time Olympian Marcus
O’Sullivan ’84 VSB,
’89 M.B.A., the Frank J.
Kelly Endowed Track
and Field Coach at
Villanova, won three
world indoor championships
in the 1,500
meters and has run a
remarkable 101 sub-4-minute miles.
Summer 2008 13