By Will Hammock
Reprinted with Permission from the Gwinnett Daily Post

A year of ultimate team success didn’t equate to personal happiness for Amanda Weir. The Brookwood graduate and 2004 Olympic silver medalist has asked for and been granted a release from her swimming scholarship at Georgia, a school she helped win the NCAA title as a freshman this year. The release allows Weir to transfer to another college without sitting out a year as long as the transfer isn’t to another SEC school. Weir informed Georgia head coach Jack Bauerle of her decision a few weeks ago. The nation’s top swimming schools were after Weir as a Brookwood senior, but she picked Georgia over Stanford and Southern California.

“When I decided to go to Georgia, I was having a hard time making the decision to begin with,” Weir said on Wednesday after her SwimAtlanta practice. “I really wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like I showed up on campus like some people and thought, ‘Oh my gosh. This is where I want to go.’ It was an Olympic year and I had to get back to training. It was a safe decision (to go to Georgia) because I knew the coaches and I knew a lot of the girls on the team. I guess now I just want to spread my wings a little bit.”

Weir, who won a pair of silver medals in the 2004 Olympics on two relays, is looking at PAC-10 schools Southern California, Stanford, California and Arizona. She has spent many summers with family in Orange County, Calif. and also trained for the Olympics in Palo Alto, home of Stanford, before joining the U.S. team in Athens, Greece.

Although she lived in Minnesota before moving to Georgia, Weir said she has always loved the West Coast.

“It’s always been my favorite place to go,” Weir said. “I guess I’ve always been a California girl that lives in Atlanta.”

The 19-year-old arrived at Georgia after a whirlwind summer of 2004. A summer of U.S. Olympic Trials, training with the Olympic team and competing on the world’s largest stage had her traveling all summer. She was home from the Olympics for only two days before she headed off to college.

The season went well for Weir, who was second in the 200 freestyle, third in the 50 free and ninth in the 100 free at the NCAA Championships. She also anchored four winning relays, three that set NCAA records and two that set American records. “I wouldn’t trade this year for anything,” Weir said. “The girls were awesome and we achieved so much. But it just wasn’t the place for me. All my friends would come back from college and be like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s so much fun.’ And I just wasn’t feeling like that. I love the people there. It just didn’t quite feel at home to me.”

Weir plans to use this fall to visit colleges and enroll at a new school either in January or August of 2006. In the meantime she will take online classes from Georgia and train at SwimAtlanta.

Reprinted with Permission of the Gwinnett Daily Post.