For McCulloh, Giving Everything Is What Matters

By John Frierson
Staff Writer

Throw whatever you want at Abby McCulloh and the cheerful and high-achieving Georgia swimmer, the 2024 NCAA champion in the 1,650-yard freestyle and the co-SEC Women’s Swimming & Diving Scholar-Athlete of the Year, is going to meet it with grace, perspective and her best effort possible. Just don’t expect her to treat every result like it’s do-or-die.

“I don’t think my drive has ever been determined by performance,” said the senior distance swimmer from Lilburn, Ga. “I want to succeed for the girls around me and for (coach Stefanie Williams Moreno), and just do the best I can and finish out my career the best I can.

“I don’t have any kind of crazy expectations of myself. I just want to make sure that I remain the person that I’ve always been. Just work hard, be kind, give every practice and everything my all. Knowing that I’ve left the sport and given everything that I had is all that I hope to do this season.”

McCulloh, already a five-time All-American, has excelled at Georgia in every way imaginable. Along with winning the NCAA title in the 1,650 last March, she also won an SEC title in her best event. McCulloh ranks No. 2 all-time at Georgia in the 1,650 and the 1,000 free and she holds the Bauerle Pool record in both events.

Out of the pool, McCulloh has maintained a 4.0 GPA and was the female recipient of the 2024 Joel Eaves Scholar-Athlete Award which goes to the returning senior Bulldog with the highest GPA. Last month, she was named the recipient of the 2024 Rose Bowl Game Keith Jackson Postgraduate Scholarship. The Journalism major will receive a $10,000 scholarship and do a work-study program during the College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1.

McCulloh is also a student representative on the UGA Athletic Association Board and a member of the Georgia Way’s Leadership Education and Development Academy. Add all of that together and you have someone making the most of her collegiate opportunities and experiences.

There is a competitive side to McCulloh, however. But it might not show itself in the pool. To see it, you’ve got to break out the games.

“I will talk trash when it comes to Scrabble or something — fun stuff like that. But with swimming, I know that in order to minimize anxiety, I know that I can only control what I can control, and that means my attitude and effort, I can’t control what anybody else does.”

Swimming the 1,650 at the Georgia Fall Invitational in Bauerle Pool last month, McCulloh won with a time of 15:46.99, which ranks third in the country so far in 2024-25. It won’t surprise you that McCulloh isn’t too worried about what anyone else is doing.

“I don’t really try and compare myself too much,” she said. “I mean, obviously it’s nice to know that I’m in a good spot based on my time, but also, I think there’s a power in just kind of like the acceptance of what happens. …

“I think it’s definitely a confidence boost to go that fast in a mid-season meet. But I’m just going to continue to work on the details that I’ve been focusing on.”

Back in March, when McCulloh won the NCAA title in Bauerle Pool, she swam the race in 15:37.74, the fastest collegiate time in the country in 2023-24 by more than three seconds. Stanford’s Aurora Roghair was the runner-up to McCulloh in the NCAA meet and she has the second-fastest time so far this year at 15:36.43. Leading the way right now is Texas’ Jillian Cox, who has a time of 15:34.66.

Coming up Wednesday, McCulloh and the rest of the Georgia swimmers will be in Austin competing against the Longhorns. After that, they’ll have a break (from racing, not training) for the holidays before beginning a five-week tune-up toward hosting the SEC Championships beginning Feb. 17.

McCulloh is happy when she wins races because to do so probably she had to swim well and give her best effort. But she also knows that losing is a great catalyst for learning and growing. When she was being recruited out of high school, McCulloh said, a coach once asked if she felt more strongly about loving to win or hating to lose.

“And I was like, honestly, I don’t really feel strongly about either of those,” she said. “Like, if I win, great. If I lose, I learn. … I don’t hate losing. I think I learn a lot from losing, and especially if it’s losing to one of my teammates, and we’re still getting all the points, then we’re doing what we’re supposed to.”

The bottom line is that McCulloh doesn’t want to weigh herself down with pressures and expectations. Those things might bring out the best in some athletes, which is great for them if they can handle it, but McCulloh isn’t wired that way. For her, she said with a smile, “a happy swimmer is a fast swimmer.”

Skills

Posted on

December 17, 2024

Positive SSL