INDIANAPOLIS – University of Indianapolis senior swimmer Cedric Buessing and Drury University senior swimmer Claire Conover each earned the 2025 Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award as the league’s male and female athlete of the year, the Conference office announced Monday.
The awards are bestowed annually by the GLVC to one male and one female student-athlete who display academic excellence, athletic ability and achievement, character, and leadership. It is named in honor of former GLVC Commissioner, as well as coach and director of athletics at Saint Joseph's College.
Buessing and Conover will be formally recognized Tuesday, May 20, at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car GLVC Awards Reception in St. Louis, Missouri.
Buessing becomes the fifth male and 12th overall individual from Indianapolis to claim the GLVC’s top student-athlete honor. In his senior season, Buessing earned his fourth-straight GLVC Swimmer of the Year award after securing gold in the 500 freestyle, 1000 free, 1650 free, and 400 individual medley at the league’s championship event. The Grevenbroich, Germany native’s time of 4:16.15 in the 500 free broke the Division II record at the time, while also breaking the conference record in the 1000 free. Buessing followed that up with a second-place finish in the 1000 free at the NCAA Championships before a sudden illness knocked him out of competition for the rest of the week. He also set new school marks in the 200 free, 500 free, 1000 free, 200 backstroke, and 800 free relay.
For his career, Buessing earned All-America honors 17 times, highlighted by back-to-back national titles in the 1000 free in 2023 and 2024. He collected eight GLVC Swim & Dive Athlete of the Week accolades, 16 first-place finishes at the conference championship, and grabbed the league’s Freshman of the Year award in 2022. Buessing helped the Greyhounds win two conference crowns (2022, 2024) and its first national title in program history in 2023, along with contributing to the 2022 and 2024 teams that placed third nationally. On the international level, Buessing qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics in the 400 IM, landing in eighth place as a representative of Germany. He is believed to be the first DII swimmer to reach an Olympic final.
Academically, Buessing excelled in the classroom where he carried a 3.887 GPA in business administration and management, making the Dean’s List five times through last fall semester. The 2025 CSC Men’s Swimming and Diving Academic All-American of the Year and a two-time CSC Academic All-America First Team honoree, Buessing has also been named Academic All-America Second Team once, Academic All-GLVC four times, and CSCAA Scholar All-America First Team four times. In addition to Buessing’s laundry list of achievements, he is also a member of the Delta Mu Delta society and participated in multiple cleaning days with the UIndy swimming and diving team.
UIndy head swim coach Brent Noble stated, “Cedric is an absolute testament to hard work getting you where you want to be, and his resume as he leaves the NCAA is the envy of anyone.”
Conover is the fourth female and eighth overall student-athlete from Drury to win the GLVC’s most prestigious honor. In her senior campaign with the Panthers, Conover claimed All-America recognition in five events – 100 breaststroke, 200 breast, 200 IM, 400 IM, 800 free relay – at nationals and medalist finishes in the same four individual events at the GLVC Championships. Her four seasons at Drury yielded All-America honors 16 times, nine individual GLVC titles, three team conference championships, and a trio of top-three finishes at the NCAA Championships. Conover was also named GLVC Swimmer of the Year in 2023 after collecting four golds and two silvers at the league’s championship event.
In the classroom, Conover was equally dominant, carrying a 3.93 GPA into her final semester as a biology major in the pre-medicine program. She received Academic All-GLVC honors three times, GLVC Brother Gaffney Distinguished Scholar Award once, CSCAA Scholar All-American thrice, and CSC Academic All-American and Academic All-District laurels three times. The Wichita, Kansas native also appeared on the Dean’s List seven times. To go along with her impressive athletic and academic resume, Conover has worked and volunteered at multiple hospitals in Wichita and Springfield, along with being a member of the Drury Exercise Physiology Club, American Chemical Society, and Math Honor Society.
“Claire is 100 percent the complete package, both athletically and academically…I can’t think of a more deserving athlete who committed herself to academic and swimming excellence during her four years than Claire,” said Drury head swim and dive mentor Brian Reynolds.