Karen Moe Humphreys knew right away the difference "Madame Butterfly" would make.
 
When Mary T. Meagher stepped onto Cal's campus as a freshman in the fall of 1982, she was already the swimming world's top female butterflier, having set world records in the 100-meter and 200-meter events that would stand for more than 18 years apiece. She had also been the favorite to win gold in the two events at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, which the U.S. Olympic team boycotted.
 
By the time Meagher graduated from Cal in 1987, she was a triple-gold medalist at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, a six-time individual NCAA champion – including the program's first national title as a freshman in 1983 – a two-time Honda Sports Award winner for swimming and the overall winner of the 1987 Honda Broderick Cup as the nation's most outstanding female college athlete.
 
"We expected her to win, a lot," said Humphreys, Cal's women's swimming & diving head coach from 1978-92. "She changed the way that female swimmers looked at Cal from a recruiting perspective. The fact that someone like Mary came along and chose to swim at Cal, it really opened the doors to the future sustained success of the program."
 
Thanks to her parents' foresight, Meagher graduated from high school early to avoid her first year of college falling on the Olympic year of 1984. In what was already a vastly different recruiting landscape in the early '80s, Meagher's recruitment process was even more unconventional. Because of her Olympic ambitions, the NCAA gave Meagher special permission to have recruiting conversations before her senior year if she made first contact with a school.
 
"I felt most comfortable at Berkeley," Meagher said. "All the other schools seemed to have a strike against them in my mind. I took the suggestion to go somewhere that I'd enjoy even if I didn't have swimming, and that was Berkeley."
 
Meagher's comfort with Berkeley was elevated by the trust she had in Humphreys, who set the world record in the 200 fly multiple times throughout 1970-72 and was the gold medalist in the 200 fly at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.
 
"While Karen didn't have a long resume of athletes that she had trained, I felt I could trust her because of her individual success and accomplishments in the butterfly event," Meagher said. "Toward the end of my college career, Karen helped me with technique issues, and that's when the respect really came around. I give her so much credit for that; she probably didn't get the respect she deserved back then."
 
Despite Meagher's early success at Cal – three total NCAA titles in 1983 and 1985 and the triple-gold performance in the summer of 1984 – she struggled to adapt to Humphreys' leadership style. Meagher sought words of encouragement and affirmation from her coaches, and Humphreys expected her student-athletes to swim for themselves.
 
"My goal with all athletes who trained under me, Mary included, was to help them understand what it took to swim for themselves and to be self-motivated, so that they could help contribute to their own training program and their overall understanding of the sport," Humphreys said. "For Mary, that was harder than some people, but she finally got there. She was going to win; we all knew that. But at the same time, to strive toward doing it for yourself, all while having fun, is a true test."
 
Meagher finally felt a shift in her mindset and approach to swimming during her junior and senior years.
 
"I switched from swimming for someone else to swimming for me," Meagher said. "I wanted to go fast for me. Before, I was swimming for the hug that came after the race, and while it's human nature, it was also somewhat immature. By the time you're 21, you need to move toward self-motivation, and Karen helped me with that."
 
Meagher's impact is still felt at Berkeley. Since she swam to her first NCAA title in 1983, Cal has captured 74 total individual and relay national titles and four NCAA team championships while becoming one of the nation's premier programs.
 
"Mary T. is a shining example of the many iconic women who speak to the legacy of our program," said current Cal women's swimming & diving head coach Teri McKeever, who has led the Bears to all four of their NCAA team championships. "She is probably one of the first swimmers, at that time, who chose a school other than the juggernauts that were Florida, Stanford and Texas. Her decision to be at Cal opened the door for so many swimmers to follow in her footsteps at Berkeley."
 
Meagher is not oblivious to the trailblazing path she laid at Berkeley.
 
"I take so much great pride in what I was able to accomplish at Cal," Meagher said. "I do take credit for feeling like I could make Cal be considered by other great swimmers that came after me. To have a school that blends athletics and academics the way Cal does, it's certainly unique. Cal is a different type of special, and it was exactly what I wanted and needed."