Kevin Cordes, Margo Geer, Brad Tandy Join Arizona Sports Hall of Fame
Swimmers Kevin Cordes, Margo Geer and Brad Tandy are among 10 honorees in the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2025, announced Thursday.
Diver Samantha Pickens is also included, as well as the 2012 men’s 200 medley relay (Mitchell Friedemann, Cordes, Giles Smith, Adam Small) and 2013 men’s 400 medley relay (Friedemann, Cordes, Smith, Nimrod Shapira Bar-Or).
Cordes was the 2013 and 2014 NCAA Swimmer of the Year and the 2015 Pac-12 Men’s Swimming and Diver Scholar-Athlete of the Year. He won a gold medal at the 2016 Olympics in the men’s medley relay as well as four individual World Championships medals and five relay medals (four gold) and an American record in the 100 breast. Cordes was a four-time NCAA champion in the 100 breast to go with medley relay titles.
He swam the fastest breaststroke leg in history in the 2013 400 medley relay at 49.56 as the squad won the school’s third title in that event in 3:02.09. The 200 medley relay from a year earlier went 1:23.53 to break the American record.
Geer was a 27-time All-American who won two NCAA titles in the 100 free (2013, 2014) and the 50 free in 2014. She remains part of the school-record 400 and 800 free relays. The 2015 Pac-12 Woman of the Year was the top Arizona female athlete four straight years and won the Pac-12’s Tom Hansen Medal in 2014. Now the head coach of Alabama, she won an individual gold medal at the 2019 Pan American Games in the 100 free to go with silver in the 50 free and three relay olds. She also has four career golds from relays at World Championships.
Tandy swam at a pair of Olympics for South Africa. He won three medals at the African Games, a bronze in the 50 free at the World Short-Course Championships in 2018 and silver in the 50 free at the Commonwealth Games that year. He was a four-time All-American and the 2014 NCAA champion in the 50 free.
Pickens was a five-time All-American diver and the first Arizona female diver to win an NCAA title when she captured the 1-meter title in 2013. She repeated in that title in 2015, when she won the Pac-12 title. The Pac-12 Diver of the Year was voted to the Pac-12 All-Century Team as one of the conference’s top 32 athletes. She competed at three U.S. Olympic Trials.
Joining them in the Class of 2025 are baseball player Ben Diggins, Super Bowl winning football quarterback Nick Foles, men’s basketball player Channing Frye and the 2024 triathlon national championship team. The class will be inducted at a ceremony on Nov. 21 at the Westin La Paloma Resort and Spa.
