The Youngstown State University women's swim team took to the water for the first time as an NCAA participant prior to the start of the 1975-76 season. The program had a most successful 12-year run until it ceased operation after the 1986-87 campaign, yet one women's swimmer, Janet Kemper, is honored tonight beÂcause she stood head and shoulders above the rest of the pack, a swimmer who knew exactly what it took to become a champion in the truest sense of the word!
Recruited by her brother Joe, the second year head coach of the Penguins (himself a Penguin swimmer from 1973-74 to 1977-78), she plunged into the water as a freshman during the 1982-83 school year, and when she crawled out of the water for the very last time after the 1985-Â86 campaign, she had achieved 20 All-America awards and established 11 Beeghly Natatorium records that still stand today.
She hails from Dayton, Ohio, and for four straight years, participated in the NCAA/Division II Swimming and Diving Championships. As a freshman, she earned her first All-America awards as she took first place in the 50 fly (set the national record and is still the current record holder), was second in the 100 fly, took third place in both the 50 free and 100 free while placing 10th in the 200 free relay.
Her sophomore year found her with a second-place finish in the 100 free, two third-place finishes in the 100 fly (she set the national record in the prelims; not broken) and the 50 free, placed fourth in the 800 free relay while capturing 12th in the 200 medley relay.
As a junior in 1984-85, she was third in the 100 fly, fourth in the 100 free, sixth in the 50 free and placed in the top 12 in the 400 free relay, then rounded out her All-America honors as a senior by placing third in the 50 free, fourth in the 100 free, 9th in 100 fly, 16th in the 800 free relay and placed in the top of the class in the 400 free relays as well.
She established the standards at YSU by setting pool marks in no less than 11 events, and as a testimonial to her, they are still the high water marks some 10 years after her final event.
She graduated with her BS in Business AdministraÂtion degree (she majored in Accounting) in the winter of 1987, and is currently the comptroller/office manager at Hi-T.E Q., Inc. of Miamisburg, Ohio.
She is the mother of a son, Mitchell Thomas Kemper, born in September 1988.
