Gold Swimmer Prevails Through Dedication, Determination

Jordan Dunn had been a standout swimmer for the Chattahoochee Gold year-round swim club since he was 12 years old (breaking a team record on his very first year with the team). So when he graduated from East Cobb’s Lassiter High School last spring, he had his sights set on continuing his swim & academic careers at a Division 1 university. However, he says, “I didn’t really become fast enough for a good D1 school until March at Sectionals of my senior year (a regional swim meet for the best swimmers in ten southern states), which was very late.”

Jordan says, “It was very hard and I was pretty unhappy to be honest. I saw how much everyone else was enjoying swimming in college.” But he was fortunate that Gold’s Founder & Head Coach Pat Murphy allowed him to continue to train with the team,"Jordan is a late-blooming swimming success story that has an interesting twist. He received modest interest as a high school swimmer, and had his hopes pinned on a particular out-of-state ACC swim program. On the night that a scheduled phone call turned from triumph to disaster - he understood that they would be discussing the scholarship offer - but it turned out that the head coach had been let go and he didn’t have a spot on the team after all. Jordan had to confront a future with little prospect of collegiate swimming. But Jordan doubled down, enrolled in a local community college, lived at home, and kept swimming with Chattahoochee Gold during what would have been his freshman year. Fate came knocking and Arizona State picked him up as a scholarship athlete." Says Jordan, "Obviously it was too good of an opportunity to pass up and the rest is history."

Looking back, Jordan says the very best part of Chattahoochee Gold was the time spent with his incredible teammates. “They helped me get through the disappointment and hardship of staying behind and they kept me focused and motivated, like good teammates do. Those experiences I had with them are something I wouldn’t trade for anything.”

At ASU, Jordan says his goals are to win some individual swim titles, break some records and help lead ASU to a national championship, "and hopefully I inspire someone who is going through something similar to not give up."

Coach Pat Murphy reflects, "Most people would have given up after the setback that Jordan experienced, but he stuck with his dream of D-1 swimming and kept working at it. We’re all happy to see that it worked out better than we could have expected."

Chattahoochee Gold is one of the first teams in the nation to achieve USA Swimming’s coveted “Level 4” status. Its swimmers train at the Woodstock Aquatic Center, Cherokee County Aquatic Center in Canton, Mountain View Aquatic Center in Marietta and Cumming Aquatic Center.

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