Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

At the United States Aquatic Sports Convention in Missouri, Rowdy Gaines received the USA Swimming Award for his outstanding contributions to the sport. The USA Swimming Award is the highest honor among its 380,000 members.

“I am incredibly humbled by this award, mainly because I think swimming has given me so much more than I could ever imagine delivering to it,” Gaines said. “We are a family and I always have been and always will be a proud part of the greatest sport in the world.”

A three-time Olympic gold medalist, International Swimming Hall of Fame member and prominent television analyst on NBC, Gaines has called both Olympic 10 km marathon swimming races in Beijing and London for NBC-TV as well as numerous other open water races from California to Florida.

“Other than his athletic achievements and serving as the voice of the sport, what is truly admirable about Rowdy is that while everyone knows his name, it also seems that knows everyone else’s name, too,” said Steven Munatones. “He makes everyone feel at home around him while his charisma fills any aquatic venue he visits.”

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