By JOSH KATZOWITZ
Staff Writer

Head swimming coach Jack Bauerle today will receive the National Collegiate and Scholastic Swimming Trophy, the highest award of its kind in the United States.

The award, to be presented to him in Prescott, Ariz., also is the biggest of his 19-year coaching career. It pays tribute to an individual or organization that contributes to swimming as a competitive sport and healthy recreation.

"We’re very excited for our program, our coaching staff and our swim team," Bauerle said Thursday. "We’ve put a lot of work into our program and feel that this reflects the extraordinary successes of the last four or five years both athletically and academically."

Athletic Director Vince Dooley said he believes Bauerle richly deserves the award.

"I think it’s a tribute to him," Dooley said. "(His athletes) not only produce in the pool but also in the classroom. There’s no coach that I know that has been able to assemble as fine a group as Coach Bauerle."

Bauerle already has accumulated an NCAA Women’s Swimming Coach of the Year Award, seven Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year Awards, 104 All-America honorees, 52 SEC Champions, six NCAA individual championship titles, one NCAA relay champion and 31 Academic All-Americans.

"I’m certainly flattered to be recognized with such an honor, particularly from my peers," Bauerle said. "I’m not going to be able to receive a bigger honor than this in my career."

Bauerle, the winningest active coach in the SEC, has compiled a 251-69-1 record and needs only two more dual-meet victories to surpass Tennessee’s Ray Bussard as the coach with the most wins ever in the country.

Also at a banquet in Prescott tonight, Bauerle will be awarded his NCAA Women’s Coach of the Year Award, which he won at the 1998 Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships this past March in Minneapolis.

"I’m looking forward to the presentation (tonight). It will be great for the University of Georgia and our program," Bauerle said.