The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Hall of Honor
- Induction:
- 2021
- Class:
- 2009
An NCAA individual champion, five-time All-American, four-time Big 12 individual champion and three-time Big 12 Conference Women’s Diver of the Year, Jessica Livingston Gibson is one of the top divers in program history. During her time in Austin, she helped lead the Longhorns to a pair of Big 12 Conference titles and three Top-8 team finishes at the NCAA Championships. Gibson spent her freshman season in 2004-05 at the University of Minnesota, where she earned second-team All-Big Ten honors and was named the team MVP following the year. After transferring to UT in the summer of 2005, she won the platform event and placed third on the 1-meter board and fourth on the 3-meter board at the 2006 Big 12 Championship meet. Gibson earned Big 12 Women’s Diver of the Year honors as a sophomore while helping the Longhorns win the league’s team title. She went on to earn All-America honors by placing fourth on platform at the 2006 NCAA Championships. In her junior season in 2006-07, Gibson again won the platform event and placed second on the 3-meter board and third on the 1-meter board at the conference meet to claim Big 12 Women’s Diver of the Year recognition. At the 2007 NCAA Championship meet, she won the individual title on platform with a final score of 357.85 points, edging out Indiana’s Lindsay Weigle by just 1.3 points. Gibson also placed third on the 3-meter board at the NCAA meet. After redshirting the 2007-08 season, she returned to win the platform and 3-meter events at the Big 12 Championship meet to lead the Longhorns to the conference title and garnered Big 12 Women’s Diver of the Year accolades. Gibson concluded her collegiate career by finishing second on platform and fourth on the 3-meter board at the 2009 NCAA Championships, pacing the Longhorns to a fifth-place team finish. A first-team Academic All-Big 12 selection in 2007 and four-year member of the Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll, she received the Good Right Arm Advertising Scholarship in 2006, the Darrell K. Royal Endowed Presidential Scholarship in 2007 and the Janet Hauber Academic Excellence Award in 2009. Gibson earned her degree in advertising from The University of Texas in 2009. Competing with USA Diving, she won four national titles, earning the win on platform in 2006 as well as combining with former Longhorn Laura Wilkinson in 2005, 2007 and 2008 to win the U.S. Synchronized Platform titles. Gibson was a finalist at two USA Olympic Trials, earning a fourth-place showing on platform in 2004 and a fifth-place result on platform in 2008 in addition to finishing runner-up with Wilkinson in the synchronized platform event in 2008. As a member of the U.S. National Team, she competed at the 2005 FINA Grand Prix in China, the China FINA Open in 2008 and the AT&T USA FINA Grand Prix in 2008. After graduating from UT, Gibson spent a year as a diving performer with the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line on the ship Oasis of the Seas. She then served as a graduate assistant coach at the University of Alabama, where she earned her MBA in 2012.
