ANNVILLE, Pa. – The first woman to be named an NCAA champion at Gettysburg College, former swimmer Patti Schuman Koontz '84 was one of 12 new inductees into the Middle Atlantic Conference Hall of Fame it was recently announced.
 
Specializing in butterfly and freestyle, Koontz earned 21 individual first-place finishes and was a member of 12 winning relay teams as a first-year. She was a conference champion in the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard butterfly and was also a member of the winning 400-yard medley and 400-year freestyle relay teams. She went on to earn four all-America certificates at the AIAW national championships, placing second in the 50-yard butterfly, sixth in the 50-yard freestyle, fourth in the 100-yard butterfly and sixth in the 200-medley relay.
 
As a sophomore, she won individual conference championships in the 100-yard butterfly, 100-yard freestyle and the 400-yard freestyle relay. The NCAA established championships for women this year and Koontz became Gettysburg's first-ever national champion by winning the 50-yard butterfly. She also placed fourth in the 100 fly and seventh in the 100 free and swam on four All-American relays in 1982.
 
During her tenure with the swim program, Gettysburg won two MAC team championships and finished fifth overall at the inaugural NCAA Division III Championship in 1982. A business major from Jenkintown, Pa., Koontz was unable to compete in the pool following her sophomore year due to chronic shoulder tendinitis.
 
Koontz was inducted into the Gettysburg Hall of Athletic Honor in 1994. She is the 11th Gettysburgian to earn a spot in the MAC Hall of Honor since 2012. The Bullets competed off-and-on in the MAC in a number of sports throughout most of the 20th century before joining the Centennial Conference in all sports in the fall of 1993.
 
Gettysburg's MAC Hall of Fame Members
Bob Kenworthy '59 (2012)
Arif Husain '93 (2012)
Lynne Cassidy '92 (2013)
Hen Bream '24 (2014)
Joseph Bavaro '66 (2015)
Lois Bowers (2016)
Jim Ward '66 (2017)
Susan Marshall Marotto '85 (2018)
Joe Egresitz '67 (2019)
Ron Warner '62 (2020)
Patti Schuman Koontz '84 (2022)