CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Virginia junior Claire Curzan (Cary, N.C.) was named the CSC Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for swimming and diving in honors announced Tuesday (April 28) by College Sports Communicators.
Curzan was also one of three Cavaliers voted to the CSC Academic All-America teams, earning first-team honors. Sophomores Anna Moesch and Katie Grimes were voted to the second team.
Curzan is the third Cavalier swimmer to be named the Academic All-American of the Year, joining Lexi Cuomo, who earned the honor in 2023, and Gretchen Walsh in 2025. This is the sixth time that a Cavalier has earned the top honor in any sport.
Curzan is an Applied Statistics major with a 3.87 GPA. She won her third consecutive NCAA title in the 200-yard backstroke and back-to-back titles in the 100-yard backstroke. For the second year in a row, she swam on the NCAA champion relays in the 200- and 400-yard freestyle and the 200- and 400-yard medleys in helping the Cavaliers to their sixth consecutive national championship.
She is a 21-time All-American with five individual and eight relay NCAA titles in her first three seasons. Curzan has captured 18 conference championships and was named ACC Championship Most Valuable Women’s Swimmer of the Meet this past season after winning a pair of individual races and swimming on three champion relays. She was also voted the co-ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
This is Curzan’s second straight year earning first-team Academic All-America honors. Moesch and Grimes have earned the accolade in their first year of eligibility for the award.
Since 1952, College Sports Communicators (formerly CoSIDA) has bestowed Academic All-American recognition on male and female athletes in Divisions I, II, and III of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), as well as athletes in the NAIA, other U.S. four-year schools, two-year colleges and Canadian universities, covering all championship sports. The award honors student-athletes who have performed well academically and athletically while regularly competing for their institution.
During the 1987–88 academic year, College Sports Communicators began selecting one student as the most outstanding team member. In 1996, CSC began selecting two outstanding team members yearly, one each from the college and university divisions. In 2011–12, when the program was expanded to include four sets of teams (Division I, Division II, Division III and a College Division), four winners were chosen, one from each division. Swimming & Diving was part of the At-Large program until 2022-23, when it was given its own category.