Donn Boyd
Donn Boyd is a native Texan born in Austin in 1947 and is a lifetime contributor to aquatics in the state. He is a founding director of the Texas Swimming and Diving Hall of Fame. He graduated from Killeen High School and was a member of the Texas A&M Aggie swimming and water polo teams. After graduating, Donn served as an assistant coach for TSDHOF inductee Art Adamson. Donn was the swimming, diving and water polo coach at La Marque High School from 1970 to 1978. In 1978, he moved to San Antonio where he has been involved in every aspect of aquatics in the region. Donn served as the Northside School District’s head coach, assistant coach and mentor for swimmers, divers and water polo players. In addition to coaching, he served as a public school teacher, lifeguard instructor, learn-to-swim director, pool manager and official for swimming, diving and water polo. He served for 18 years as the NISCA Water Polo All-America Chairman. Donn Boyd’s awards include: two-time winner of the Texas Boy’s Water Polo Coach of the Year, NISCA Outstanding Service Award, the TISCA Female Water Polo MVP Award (which is now named in his honor), and The Dee Hollar Memorial for Texas Swimming and Diving High School Officials Award of Excellence.
Colleen Lanné Cox
Colleen Lanné Cox was raised in Tucson, Arizona, and attended the University of Texas from 1998 to 2001. She was a four-time NCAA champion, held American and US Open records in the 100 free and won individual NCAA titles in the 50 and 100 free. During her time at Texas, she was a 22-time all-American and two-time Big 12 Swimmer of the Year. In 2002, Colleen was a silver medalist in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay at the Short Course World Championships held in Moscow. She won a silver in the 200-meter freestyle, as well as gold medals in the 4×100-meter and 4×200-meter freestyle relays at the 2003 Pan American Games held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Colleen qualified for the 2004 U.S. Olympic team in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay after finishing fifth in the 100-meter freestyle at the Olympic Trials. She earned a silver medal in Athens, Greece, by swimming for the second-place U.S. team in the preliminary heats of the 400 Freestyle relay. Colleen lives in Austin and has two sons, Rowan and Rhett.
Richard Sybesma
Richard Sybesma grew up in the West Texas town of Andrews, where he was a two-time Texas state high school swimming qualifier in 1970-71. Richard swam for Texas Tech University from 1971-75 and was elected co-captain his junior and senior years. During those years he received the Team Spirit and Leadership Awards. His first coaching job brought him to Monahans, Texas, where a new indoor pool was just completed. The club and high school teams excelled, winning three 3A-and-under state titles. Richard was hired in 1979 as the head swim coach at TCU and held that position for 38 years, becoming the longest tenured head coach in school history. During his time at TCU, he earned five Conference Coach of the Year honors as well as was Coach of the Year for all Sports in Conference USA in 2004. He coached four Olympians, seven national champions, 18 all-Americans, and seven conference team championships. In 1996 he coached Walter Soza and the Nicaraguan Olympic team in Atlanta and in 2001 participated in the Olympic torch relay for the Salt Lake City games. Coach Sybesma earned his master’s degree in 1992 and has an endowed scholarship set up in his name at TCU. He received the Master Coach Award given by the College Swim Coaches Association. Richard has conducted clinics for NISCA and CSCAA. During his career he led the Horned Frogs in five different conferences: SWC, WAC, USA, MWC, and Big 12. During his time in Fort Worth, Richard was credited with giving back to the community by teaching more than 15,000 children through the learn-to-swim program at TCU. His program, Fort Worth Swimming Frogs, is credited for giving more than 4,000 swimming lessons to lower economic children through the Rainwater Foundation. Richard has two daughters, Courtney and Katy, and he and his wife Wendy have nine grandchildren.
John Webb
John Webb grew up in New Albany, Indiana, where he was the 100-yard freestyle state champion during his senior year at New Albany High School. He accepted a swimming scholarship to Indiana State University and was a NAIA and NCAA (college division) all-American. When he graduated, he held seven ISU swimming records. John began coaching at Central High School in South Bend, Indiana, where he developed another state swimming record holder in the 50 freestyle. John then started a new swimming program at Decatur High School in Indianapolis and after two years there, became a graduate assistant at Indiana University, where he had the opportunity to study under the legendary Coach “Doc” Counsilman. John became involved in Masters swimming and won the 200-yard backstroke at the national Masters meet in 1971. After earning his master’s degree at Indiana, he accepted a job at Clinton High School in Iowa where he brought the swimming program back to a respected competitive level. After four years at Clinton HS, he was named the aquatics coordinator for the Pasadena Independent School District in Pasadena, Texas. John had his work cut out as none of the four PISD schools had ever won any team title or qualified any swimmers to the UIL state swimming meet. In John’s final year of coaching there, the boys’ team at Pasadena High School won the regional meet, beating Bellaire High School and qualified 19 swimmers from PISD to the state meet. He then accepted the head swimming coach position at Cypress Creek High School in 1980 and became involved at the national level through NISCA, and as the Special Projects chairman he organized the first coaching clinics at the NISCA national meetings. He was voted President of NISCA in 1983 and was awarded the Outstanding Service Award in 1986. It was at Cypress Creek that his talents would allow him to develop a program that became one of the most successful programs in water polo and swimming in the nation. His 23 years at Cypress Creek produced more than 200 all-Americans in both sports. His boys’ team won back-to-back national titles and were sponsored by Swimming World Magazine. Two of the most memorable coaching accomplishments in his career were coaching his son, Mike, to high school all-American status in both water polo and swimming, and coaching Jamie Rauch, who won a silver medal at the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney. At retirement, John focused on water polo officiating. He organized and developed a state-wide water polo officials’ organization that was instrumental in supporting the UIL to recognize water polo as a bona fide UIL sport.
Lifetime Achievement Award:
Janet Gabriel
Janet Gabriel is an accomplished diver from Indiana, where she trained under legendary Indiana University diving coach Hobie Billingsley. Janet had numerous diving achievements collegiately and internationally before starting her career as a diving and gymnastics coach with Pauline Barr at Hockaday School in Dallas. When the Texas Swimming Center (TSC) was completed, Janet was hired to coach the Longhorn Aquatics Age Group Diving Club from 1977-1986. She coached many champion divers there including Jason Rhodes and Sherrie Wiggington. She coached her age group team to 10 Texas Age Group State Team Championships and was voted Texas Age Group Coach of the Year in 1986. During the Olympic Trials, which were held at the TSC in 1980, Janet filmed divers entries both above and below water for her master’s thesis, which was titled Biomechanical Analysis of the Rip Entry in Competitive Entry. Over the decades, Janet wrote a multitude of essays, research reports, articles, manuals and scientific studies all to further the sport of diving. She worked on two post-1996 Olympics projects, the Technoscience Seminar for Coaches (1997) and Behavior Modeling facilitator training. She was the project director for the Biomechanics of Competitive Diving, authored by Doris I Miller, Ph.D., and from 2003-08 Janet was an independent contractor for USA Diving. Janet served on the Performance Enhancement Team (PET) under USA Diving’s High-Performance Director, Ron O’Brien and worked with the PET bio mechanists to video tape and analyze athletes’ performances in preparation for the Olympic Games. Janet was presented with an Olympic ring in appreciation for her accuracy in predicting spot-on the Olympic Medal winning point totals. She has been the head diving coach at the Pine Crest School in Ft. Lauderdale since 2008. Janet has one daughter, Maya Carroll, a graduate of the Pine Crest School, Florida State University-BFA-Graphic Design, and FAU-MS -Information Technology. Her work continues to be referenced to this very day, and her contributions to Texas diving will be everlasting.