March 19, 2003

COLUMBIA, Mo. - By Sara Hunninghake Media Relations Student Assistant

For athletes, goals are extremely important. Setting a school record. Winning a Big 12 Championship. Competing at an NCAA Championship event. To accomplish one of these feats is not uncommon, but to achieve all three...at two different schools? Now that's rare.

Rebecca Wolfe is one of the few exceptions.

Wolfe, who transferred from Nebraska in 2001, is one of three Missouri swimmers who will compete at this weekend's NCAA Women's Swimming and Diving Championships. The junior from League City, Texas, qualified in the 200-yard butterfly after winning the event at the Big 12 Championships with a time of 1:59.82. She was the only non-Texas female to take first place in an event.

In many ways, Wolfe's season thus far has mirrored her freshman campaign at Nebraska, in which she was the school record holder, Big 12 Champion and All-American in the 200 fly, after finishing seventh in the event at NCAAs.

Although the two seasons might compare on paper, life at Mizzou has been a series of adjustments for Wolfe. The smooth road to the top Wolfe enjoyed as a Husker has been one of hills and valleys as a Tiger.

Wolfe initially decided to transfer at the end of her freshman year after Nebraska announced it was dropping its men's swimming and diving program. Although Nebraska kept its women's program, Wolfe knew the best move for her swimming career would be to transfer schools.

"I wouldn't say that I really wanted to leave Nebraska; we were basically forced to leave," said Wolfe, who is double majoring in communications and psychology. "We didn't feel confident that the athletic director would support us as a girls team, so eventually all the girls started looking at other schools."

As a freshman at Nebraska, Wolfe was the school record holder, Big 12 Champion and All-American in the 200 butterfly

Mizzou appealed to Wolfe because it had a combined program, which meant that both the men and women trained together. Also, that Mizzou was in the Big 12 Conference was an important factor in her decision.

During her first year at MU, Wolfe struggled to achieve the same success and level of happiness she experienced at Nebraska. The hardest part was leaving behind what she had started at Nebraska, and then trying to start over somewhere else.

"Coming here, it wasn't anything at Missouri that I didn't like. It was that I kept reminiscing and remembering how much I loved it at Nebraska," she said. "It's silly to think of it as a mourning period, but I lost that part of my life. I had to restart here, and it just took awhile."

This year, Wolfe has focused more on allowing herself to enjoy being at Mizzou, and it has made all the difference in her overall happiness. As she has adjusted, her swimming has also begun to return to the level she was at her freshman year. Wolfe attributes part of her improvement to more cardio work she's done outside the pool.

Now, with her second trip to the NCAA Championships looming, Wolfe doesn't feel the same amount of pressure to perform, simply because she has been there before. She'll be happy if she improves her time from the conference meet.

"I've been to Senior Nationals before, and NCAAs are a lot like that," she said. "I've already swam with people that are the best in the world, so I'm not as intimidated because I've been around this type of meet before. Now, it's just about going and showing people that I deserve to be there.

"(After conference), I definitely felt relieved that, okay, I'm not through. I'm not out of this sport yet. I'm not quite back, so to say, but I'm on my way."