2023-10-09 06:00:38
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Staff Writer
Jack Bauerle’s face lights up at the question: How would he describe Samantha Arsenault Livingstone as a swimmer?
“It’s the best thing you can say about any swimmer: She was tough as nails,” said Bauerle, Georgia’s swimming and diving head coach from 1978-2022.
Livingstone went through plenty before she got to Georgia — winning an Olympic gold medal but also dealing with depression, injury and an eating disorder — and has endured plenty since. But like bones that heal stronger after they’ve been broken, she endures and adjusts and grows through it all. And she’s made it her life’s work to help others do the same.
“Sam handled a lot and came out the other side of it,” Bauerle said. “It’s not that she came out the other side, it’s the way she came out the other side.”
A lot of what Livingstone learned and experienced at Georgia goes into her work now as a high-performance coach, public speaker and mental health activist. In 2016, she started Livingstone High Performance and the Whole Athlete Initiative, determined to help others, in and out of sports, achieve their best through “wellness initiatives, mindful leadership, emotional agility and developing healthy, high-performing cultures.”
Livingstone is one of this year’s recipients of the 2023 Arch Award, presented by the UGA Athletic Association and Piedmont Bank. The Arch Award highlights and celebrates former Bulldogs who are excelling in the business world, whether they’re entrepreneurs and business owners like Livingstone, or working at high levels in major corporations like this year’s other recipients, former women’s basketball player Tina Taylor (Ernst & Young) and former football player Greg Bright (Waffle House).
“There’s still a gap in those who need help and those who reach out for it,” Livingstone said of athletes, and student-athletes in particular, dealing with mental health issues. “We’ve made progress, but there’s so much more room for us to grow.”
At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Livingstone, then a teenager who hadn’t even started college yet, not only helped the United States win a gold medal in the 4×200-meter relay, the quartet of Livingstone, Diana Munz, Lindsay Benko and Jenny Thompson set a new Olympic record in the final.
A native of Peabody, Mass., Livingstone started her collegiate career at Michigan. Shoulder problems nearly derailed it. After her freshman year, she went looking for a fresh start elsewhere — and found a home at Georgia.
Livingstone swam for the Bulldogs from 2003-05 and was a 10-time All-American. In 2005, at the end of her senior season, she was part of a pair of powerhouse relay teams that won national championships and helped the Georgia women’s team capture the program’s fourth NCAA title in seven years.
Livingstone, Sarah Poewe, Mary DeScenza and Kara Lynn Joyce won the 200-yard medley relay, and Livingstone, Poewe, DeScenza and Amanda Weir won the 400 medley relay. The Bulldogs swept all five relays at the NCAAs that year, something that had never been done before, and rolled to the national title.
“There was like a culture of excellence in all spaces,” Livingstone said of the swimming program. “You were around people who had the highest standards and expectations for themselves and those around them. There was no need to motivate others, necessarily, it was just like: This is what we do. This is how we show up. This is how we lead. This is how it’s done here.”
But it wasn’t all about winning and excelling in the pool, Livingstone said. One of the things that stood out to her, and meant a great deal to her then and now, is that Bauerle and the coaching staff cared just as much about how you were doing personally.
“His value and emphasis on building relationships, the impact is hard to quantify,” she said. “It cultivates a sense of safety and belonging. It’s a launching pad for high performance. And many leaders are afraid to do that because of the old-school notion that I’ve got to put my thumb on you and try to control you. He really stood alongside us.
“It wasn’t just Jack, it was the whole staff.”
Livingstone was honored with SEC and NCAA postgraduate scholarships in 2005. She also earned everything from the Joel Eaves Award (for the student-athlete with the highest GPA heading into their senior season) to the Peach of An Athlete Role Model Award, to being inducted into the Blue Key Honor Society. In 2020, she was named one of Georgia’s 40 Under 40.
After graduating from Georgia with undergraduate and Master’s degrees, Livingstone spent six years teaching high school science and coaching swimming in the Atlanta area. Livingstone and her husband, Rob, a strength and conditioning coach, have four daughters: Kylie, twins Mia and Jayden, and Reese.
When Mia was 12 months old, she needed open-heart surgery and had multiple near-death experiences. It was a traumatic time for the family, and for Livingstone, “that rocked me and had me deeply reflecting as I was healing and trying to find my way.”
“Living through that experience, I needed to be able to take care of myself in order to be able to take care of her,” she said. “I sought help because I needed people around me. I knew I couldn’t go it alone. The trauma from that experience was so intense, I had all these labels like PTSD, anxiety, and learning how to heal what was underneath.
“It was connecting dots about the brain and body.”
As Livingstone started to share her story, she could see that what she’d been through as an athlete, as a mother, as a human, resonated with others. And now, her life is filled with a healthy family and a meaningful career that can have a lasting impact on others.
“It’s important to have conversations about the challenges that we go through, it’s important to normalize that as humans, but I felt like I was leaving them hanging and I needed to create the tools and pathways to help people go from where they were to where they wanted to be,” she said. “That was the catalyst for me launching the curriculum and design behind the Whole Athlete Initiative and the academy that I have online and the work I do alongside it.”
Livingstone doesn’t compete anymore, but she still enjoys her time in the water. Living in New England, she spends more time in lakes than pools.
“It took me a while to get back in the water, but now that I’m back, I love it,” she said. “The water has always been a safe space for me through challenging times, so to be able to return to it, I love it.”
Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men’s Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He’s also on Twitter: @FrersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
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