Molly Workman stands alone as the most decorated athlete in State High history. No other recorded Little Lion has matched or topped her nine PIAA gold medals.
Workman won her first state title in the medley relay in 2023 and never looked back. She won both the 50 and 100 freestyle gold medals in 2024, 2025, and 2026, and picked up additional titles this year in the 200 and 400 freestyle relays.
“I’m not sure we’ll ever see another athlete like her in my time here,” Athletic Director Loren Crispell said. “She’s exceptional in the classroom, and every moment she’s faced in the pool, she’s met that moment and achieved, and then moved on to the next one. She’s just a once in a lifetime type of athlete who is the same kind of person.”
Workman holds 13 combined school and pool records, and she has racked up countless district, conference, and meet records. She also holds the Pennsylvania state record in the 50 Freestyle and is a three-time PennLive Swimmer of the Year. Workman is the number one-ranked recruit in Pennsylvania and is committed to the University of Virginia, which won the past six national championships. Her dominant 2025-26 campaign included record-setting performances nearly every meet as she closed a career that has few parallels in Pennsylvania swimming history
At the 2026 PIAA State Championships, Workman captured her self-proclaimed favorite high school swimming accomplishment: anchoring State High’s top two freestyle relay teams to gold medals and watching her teammates win their first state championships in the process.
Her final gold medal as a Little Lion came in the 400 Freestyle Relay, and after hitting the water in fourth place, she orchestrated one of the best comebacks in Pennsylvania swimming history.
Over the last four years, Workman has grown from a quiet workhorse to someone who leads by example with the ethos of an internationally experienced three-time All-American.
“It’s really helpful when we’re doing something hard that I can look over at Molly and see that someone else is there putting in the effort too, it’s not just me,” sophomore Evan Koehle said.
In the classroom, Workman is a standout honor student and a pride coin recipient.
“She’s the whole package: she’s polite, she’s kind, she’s on time, she always does high quality work,” sports medicine teacher Jennifer Reed said. “She’s just pleasant and easy to be around, so even when you’re not in your formal school moments, she’s just really easy to sit and have casual conversations with.”
“She leads by example, like ‘this is how it’s supposed to be done; this is how we’re going to do it. If you want to get to this level, these are the steps you need to do,” Molly’s father and State High Swimming Head Coach Aaron Workman said.
As Molly Workman’s career has unfolded, the Workmans have grown into the first family of State College swimming. The aforementioned Aaron Workman is State High’s head coach, his wife, Jaime Workman, is the assistant coach, and the two work together to lead Happy Valley’s most prominent club swimming program, NLAC.
Growing up with her parents as her long-term coaches, Molly found that dinner table conversations in the Workman home naturally flowed into one main topic: swimming.
“I didn’t realize how much they’ve done for me until this year, just because, as a kid, you don’t really realize everything [your parents have] given up,” Molly Workman said. “It’s also just a great relationship…. My dad and I will ‘swim nerd’ at the dinner table…, so it’s definitely going to be a change when I get to college.”
As Molly Workman leaves the high schooler who once looked up at the record board in the State High Natatorium and thought, “I have four years to do that,” she wants to leave a legacy that most believe she has already cemented.
“I want to be known for the hard work I put in; it wasn’t easy. I know people say they hear my name on the announcements all the time, and they see all this stuff, but that’s just years and years of hard work,” Workman said. “If this is something you want, then it’s something that you need to put your effort into and go for. I hope that the people coming up have the same mindset and bring State High to keep reaching higher and higher goals.”
