2015 – GOGA VUKMIROVIC – PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
A native of Sarajevo, Croatia, and a graduate of Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Conn., Goga Vukmirovic is the second Princeton University student-athlete to make the CWPA Hall of Fame joining fellow former Tiger Adele McCarthy-Beauvais.
Fleeing a worn-torn Sarajevo, Vukmirovic left for Venezuela, where she stayed for 18 months, prior to departing to join her sister at Choate Rosemary. Also accepted into Harvard University, Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she selected Princeton although the school offered a club water polo team at the time before going varsity prior to her freshman season.
One of 12 players in school history at the time of her induction to garner All-America honors, Vukmirovic was a two-time Honorable Mention selection (1999, 2000). A four-year letterwinner (1997-2000), Vukmirovic was recognized as the Friends of Women’s Water Polo Tiger Award winner during her senior season.
The 2000 Mid-Atlantic Division Most Valuable Player and a First Team All-Mid-Atlantic Division First Team selection in both 1999 and 2000, she was a three-time All-Conference pick by earning Second Team honors in 1998. The Eastern Collegege Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championship tournament Most Valuable Player award in 1999 and 2000, she led Princeton to the National Championship tournament in 1998, 1999 and 2000 prior to anchoring the Tigers to the Eastern (now CWPA) Championship in 2000 one year prior to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sponsoring a women’s water polo championship in 2001.
Serving as a captain during her final campaign, Vukmirovic finished out her decorated career as the program’s all-time saves leader (990). Her 302 stops in 1998 currently rank third on the school’s single-season charts. Her 237 saves as a rookie sits seventh, while her 232 stops as a junior rank eighth. Her 219 saves as a senior is the 11th-highest single-season total in school history.
Vukmirovic’s career-high 17 saves in a 10-3 win over Villanova University on March 11, 2000 is tied for the fifth-highest single-game total in program history. Sharing four of the eight-highest single-game save totals in Princeton history, Vukmirovic registered at least 14 stops in a contest on 10 occasions during her illustrious career.
The program’s first-ever division Player of the Year (2000), she was equally accomplished in the water and the classroom.
A two-time Academic All-Ivy honoree (1999, 2000), she won the C. Otto Van Kienbusch Award, presented warded annually to a Princeton senior woman of high scholastic rank who has demonstrated general proficiency in athletics and the qualities of a true sportswoman. A potential College Sports Information Directors of American (CoSIDA) Academic All-America and NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship candidate, she was ineligible for both awards due to the NCAA not sponsoring a championship in the sport during her tenure with the Tigers.
A graduate of Princeton with a degree in Molecular Biology and a certificate from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, she holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the Harvard University Business School. Since matriculation, she has worked in finance, including a seven-year run working at a multi-billion dollar, multi-strategy hedge fund in New York City. She currently lives in New York City with her husband, Neal Weiner, and son.