Cal swimmers swamped the competition at the 2016 Summer Olympics, bringing home a staggering 19Â medals, including eight golds. In the wake of their epic win, athletes were welcomed back with a well-earned upgrade to their campus training facilities.
The $18-million Legends Aquatic Center, funded primarily by private donors, opened last September with splashy fanfare. The state-of-the-art facility has a 52-meter pool, three-story diving tower, and moveable bleachers that can accommodate 500Â spectators. Athletes can now train with more space and pool time, and divers no longer have to travel to Stanford every week to practice.
“Cal has a world-class aquatics program and has done it with fewer resources than most competitive programs,” says former Cal water polo letterman Edward “Ned” Spieker ’66, who helped fund Spieker Aquatics Complex in 1982. “That’s why several of us decided to help.”
Spieker and fellow Cal swimming legends — Rick Cronk ’65, the late Don Fisher ’51, and the late Warren Hellman ’55 — launched the “More Water” campaign to build an Olympic-worthy facility. In 2012,
Spieker and surviving donors and family members established Cal Aquatic Legends, a nonprofit that functioned as a springboard to the new facility.
Until now, the competitive swimming, diving, and water polo teams had been sharing one congested pool with recreational swimmers and club sport teams. Not anymore.
“Having two pools has really opened up our practice times,” says Kathleen Baker ’19, who earned a silver and gold in Rio. “We’re enjoying being part of history, knowing that so many of our predecessors helped create this amazing facility.”
