Titan swimmers earn top honors

When you're good, that's fine and dandy, but when you're good and somebody notices it, that's a horse of a different color.
In this instance, the "good" part belongs to the Westminster College women's swimming team and the group doing the noticing was the College Swimming Coaches Association of America.
In a recent release of the CSCAA, it was made known that the Titans have been awarded Academic All-America team honors for the 2004 spring semester.
Here's more good news. In addition, a pair of Titans swimmers -- senior Kate Alukonis (Baldwin High School) and freshman Amy Wirtz (Canton McKinley) -- earned CSCAA Academic All-American honorable mention individual honors.
To say that Rob Klamut's Titan swimmers are intelligent would be an understatement.
Good in classroom also
Klamut, now in his 19th year as head of the women's Titan swim team, saw his team post a GPA of 3.13 for the spring semester.
It marked the 29th time in the past 32 semesters that Westminster women's swimming has earned CSCAA Academic All-America team recognition.
The CSCAA awarded Academic All-America team honors to 64 women's swimming teams which posted a combined team grade-point average of 2.8 or higher on a 4.0 scale.
In addition to the team award, both Alukonis and Wirtz were among 37th NCAA Division III women's swimmers to earn individual Academic All-America laurels by the CSCAA.
Alukonis, a distance freestyle specialist, posted a 3.90 GPA while majoring in elementary education while Wirtz, a butterfly specialist, recorded a 3.52 GPA pursuing a major in chemistry.
Student athletes must post a 3.5 GPA or higher to be eligible for individual CSCAA Academic All-America awards.
He's back
It didn't take University of Cincinnati officials long to reinstate head basketball coach Bob Huggins.
Huggins, one-time basketball coach at the University of Akron, was put on indefinite suspension by Cincinnati after he was arrested for driving under the influence. That took place on June 12.
His suspension will end on Aug. 27, just in time for the 2004-05 season.
Huggins, 50, had just secured a new three-year contract with the Bearcats on July 1.
I had covered Huggins' games when he was at Akron. He was a fiery coach and his teams were always disciplined and highly competitive. At Cincinnati, he led his Bearcats to 13 consecutive appearances in the NCAA tournament.