When Carmen Cosgrove curls her toes around the starting block at the Big Ten Championships tonight, it will be the Northwestern women’s swim team’s best chance for a first-place finish.

NU could use a boost. Two days into the five-day championships held in West Lafayette, Ind., the Cats are in seventh place.

Cosgrove has the second-fastest times in the Big Ten in both the 100- and 200-yard butterfly — the highest rank for any Wildcat. This year alone, Cosgrove has won NU’s Female Athlete of the Week award twice.

But the senior wasn’t always a powerhouse on the NU squad.

NU wasn’t her first choice. In fact, it wasn’t even her second.

The native of Perth, Australia, started off at Curtin University in Bentley, Australia. Looking to gain an American perspective of college, Cosgrove left to study at Nebraska.

“I thought it would fun to hang around in America and study something new,” she said. “Plus it’s much easier to combine swimming and school here. Back home I had to drive three hours a day just to get back and forth from the pool.”

But upon arrival in Cornhusker country, the Aussie found that she was stuck in a dying program full of turmoil. The swimming coaches — who were in charge of both men’s and women’s teams — were under scrutiny from both Nebraska administrators and the NCAA for rule infractions.

Several swimmers had been deemed ineligible when the NCAA learned that Nebraska coach Cal Bentz and his staff paid for transportation and housing costs accrued during an unsanctioned competition. The players were reinstated when they returned the money, and the NCAA didn’t levy further punishments on the program.

But it didn’t end there. After several swimmers admitted they were given extra cash on trips, Nebraska’s director of Athletics Bill Byrne set up an internal investigation. The investigation uncovered violations by Bentz and his assistants, including that the suspended swimmers were reimbursed in cash for the money the NCAA made them return.

But the most serious charge was that the coaching staff asked several swimmers to take a cut in their scholarship funds. The athletes were then given the difference in cash.

Bentz, Nebraska’s coach of 24 years, retired shortly thereafter. His entire staff followed suit and resigned.

Enter Cosgrove.

She flew into Lincoln, Neb., three weeks after the coaching staff quit. The team was in total disarray with only a month left before the Big 12 Championships.

The problems didn’t end with the season’s completion. In March 2001 — four months after Bentz’s retirement — Nebraska announced that it would discontinue it’s men’s swimming program.

To keep in line with Title IX, the women’s team would remain. But the NCAA let swimmers to transfer without losing a year of eligibility.

Cosgrove had the choice to stay at Nebraska and help rebuild the team in her remaining two years or take her ability somewhere else.

When all of her teammates began making the decision to transfer, her choice was clear.

“There were only two girl sprinters left,” Cosgrove said. “And one coach told me to look at Northwestern, so I did.”

She was drawn to NU for its academic reputation. After a few smooth words from Cats’ coach Jimmy Tierney, she was convinced.

When she graduates in June, Cosgrove said she probably will go back to Australia to add a business and computing degree to her NU cognitive science major.