BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider

MADISON, Wis. — If Dale Rogers could go back and change one detail of his decorated career with the Wisconsin men's swimming team it would involve his farewell in January of 2004.

"I missed Senior Night," he said.

Rogers, the program leader with 14 All-American citations and owner of two USA Swimming national individual titles, explained that it was tradition for all the departing seniors to have their individual photos taken with Bucky Badger during the last home event of the season.

"That was something I was always bummed that I missed," Rogers said of a Big Ten Conference quad dual meet with Minnesota and Purdue.

Rogers was back home in Chico, California, attending the funeral of his father.

Dale Sr. battled cancer throughout his son's college career, which spanned 2000 to 2004. It had been in remission before Dale Jr. left home, but returned with a vengeance after he came to Madison.

"They told him he had two months to live for four years," Dale Jr. said of his father, his voice emotional over the phone.

Rogers, the youngest of seven children in an athletic, tight-knit family that included six sisters, said missing his final home meet at UW was an unavoidable reality.

"I obviously wasn't going to be anywhere else at that time, but I never got a Senior Night picture with Bucky," he said.

Kari Woodall was an assistant coach for the Badgers at the time. She remembers Rogers as a "very kind, considerate, authentic person," the type of guy who would thank his coaches after practice.

"Dale was not just a natural athlete, because there are a lot of those," Woodall said. "To go through college and do as well as he did with some humility, that just speaks to the person that he is."

Rogers grew up in a family of accomplished athletes. His father pitched for the old Houston Colt .45s — now the Houston Astros — while two of his sisters swam in college, one ran collegiate track and another was a professional cyclist.

"He was a very, very natural athlete," Woodall said of Rogers. "Everything came easy to him in terms of movement. But he worked incredibly hard."

Rogers once set the UW record in the 50 freestyle and was a member of five relays that established school standards. One of those, the 400 freestyle, won a Big Ten crown in 2003.

Rogers, who lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Sarah, and two children, was also a three-time All-Academic selection in the Big Ten while earning a degree in mechanical engineering.

He has the kind of resume that makes him worthy of a spot in the UW Athletic Hall of Fame.

 

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Top Five

One: Rogers said two enduring lessons came to life for him while at Wisconsin.

"You want something? Work for it," he said. "The coaches preached to that."

Hansen and Woodall also stressed priorities.

"You have your athletic career, your scholastic career and your social life," Rogers recounted. "You can only be good at two because you just don't have the time. You need to understand what's important to you."

Two: Rogers said his crowning achievement in swimming came after he left UW. He made the Team USA entry in the 2007 Pan American Games by beating Ian Crocker, a five-time Olympic medalist and former world record-holder. Rogers then earned a silver medal as a member of the 400 freestyle relay.

Three: Rogers came to UW with his close friend and fellow Californian, Matt Marshall, fully intent on utilizing five years to get his degree. It was an eye-opening journey.

"I had no idea what I was getting into weather-wise," Rogers said. "I was very naïve. I'm from Northern California, where it's very hot. I about died a couple months after getting (to Madison). Winters in Wisconsin are no joke. That's something I'd never been through before.

"But I was fully onboard from Day One. Awesome atmosphere. Awesome opportunities for athletes. I have nephews and I'm around the swimming community here, so I always promote (UW), saying, 'Hey, they take better care of their athletes than any program I've seen.'

"After Wisconsin, I trained here at Texas for another eight years. Texas is nationally recognized as a big athletic school. I'd easily put Wisconsin ahead of them when it comes to taking care of their athletes."

 

Four: Rogers is looking forward to the induction ceremony and seeing the new swimming headquarters in the Soderholm Family Aquatic Center.

"I'm hoping in September that I have a chance to jump in," he said with a laugh. "It's a beautiful pool from the pictures I've seen."

Five: The most impactful person Rogers encountered at UW was Dr. Jay Samuel, a materials science professor who retired in 2015 after 35 years at Wisconsin.

"Some professors were very good with athletes, but some were not," said Rogers, who designs manufacturing systems for Tesla. "If you told them you'd have to miss a class for a meet, they'd say, 'Tough, you fail that test.'

"I had a class of his where I'd intentionally sit in the front row of the class because it was after morning practice and I always had hard time staying awake. I would fall asleep occasionally. I tried hard not to, but I did.

"Rather than get pissed, he'd stand in front of me like nothing had happened and talked to the whole lecture hall until I noticed him and woke up.

"I remember talking to him a couple times, saying, 'Dr. Jay, I'm sorry.' He'd said, 'I get it. You have an excuse. The people in the back who are sleeping were out partying last night. You keep showing up and you're good.'"