USA250: The 10 greatest college athletes in Utah history

Nairavoice | Jul 30, 2026 1h ago 70 0 5 min read

USA250: The 10 greatest college athletes in Utah history

Utah and Brigham Young are the flagship universities in the Beehive State. Most of the success in college athletics comes from those two schools. However, there are five other institutions in the state that play in Division I that are worthy of attention.

Yes, the exercise of recognizing the 10 greatest college athletes who played in Utah is going to focus on the Utes and Cougars, who both have taken a circuitous patch to eventually reach their current membership in the Big 12 Conference. The Cougars boast a Heisman Trophy winner and several other well-known quarterbacks. The Utes have their own notable success in multiple sports.

But the list is also going to include some other standouts who didn’t play on the biggest stage in the state. Utah State and Weber State respectively produced a Pro Football Hall of Famer who also gained notoriety outside the sporting world and a future Basketball Hall of Famer.

The only Heisman Trophy winner from one of Utah’s schools, Detmer was one of the most prolific passers in college football history. He threw for 15,031 yards and 121 touchdowns while setting 59 NCAA records in his time with the Cougars. His biggest moment from the 1990 season came against No. 1 Miami when he passed for 406 yards in an upset of the Hurricanes that kick-started his Heisman run.

Ainge was a first-team All-American and won the Wooden Award in his senior season while leading the Cougars to the Elite Eight of the men’s basketball tournament. He ended his career scoring double figures in his final 112 games. Ainge also was an outstanding baseball player after being drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in 1977 and would make his major league debut while still in college. He would ultimately choose basketball for his professional career where he won two NBA titles with the Boston Celtics.

Olsen was one of the dominant defensive linemen of his era during his career. The Aggies went 18-3-1 in his final two seasons and allowed just 6.5 points per game in 1960 and 7.8 points in 1961. As a senior, Olsen won the Outland Trophy and was consensus All-American as Utah State finished 10th in both major college football polls. He was then drafted by the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and was selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame before turning to broadcasting and acting.

After a solid sophomore season, Fredette was a breakout star in his junior campaign while leading the Cougars into the second round of the NCAA Tournament, including 37 points in their double-overtime defeat of Florida in the first round. His senior season he would carry BYU to the Sweet 16 while being the consensus of national player of the year. Fredette finished as the school’s and Mountain West’s all-time scorer with 2,599 points before being selected in the first round of the NBA draft.

A prolific scorer from the beginning of his career at Weber State, Lillard was a three-time Big Sky first-team selection and conference player of the year in 2010 and 2012. His junior season was cut short by a foot injury before a senior season where he finished second in the country in scoring (24.7 ppg) while leading the Wildcats to 25 wins. Despite playing in only 104 games, he totaled 1,931 career points and was selected No. 6 in the NBA draft by the Portland Trail Blazers.

PROGRAM RANKINGS: Top 25 | Big Ten | SEC | ACC | Big 12

A three-time Western Athletic Conference player of the year, Van Horn is the all-time leading scorer in Utah history with 2,542 points. He earned second-team All-America honors as a junior before a senior season where he was a first-team All-American and led the Utes to the Elite Eight. He was selected No. 6 overall by the New Jersey Nets in the 1997 NBA draft.

A native of Namibia, Fredericks was an All-America sprinter for the Cougars in the early 1990s. He won three titles in his senior season – the indoor 200 and outdoor 100 and 200 – and silver in the 200 at the 1991 track world championships. Fredericks would win silver medals in both the 100 and 200 at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics.

Clampett had a standout career on the BYU men’s golf team with three first-team All-America selections in his three seasons at the school. During his time, he won 12 tournaments and was twice the winner of the Fred Haskins award for the nation’s top individual player. Clampett turned pro in 1980 and finished third in the 1982 U.S. Open before his career suffered a downturn. He later transitioned to broadcast as a golfing analyst for CBS.

Marlowe was a member of the U.S. Olympic team in 1988 before beginning her gymnastics career at Utah, where she would become the first woman to earn a perfect 10 on all four events. Her senior season, she led the Utes to their second national title in three seasons while winning four of her five career individual NCAA titles, including the all-around competition.

The national player of the year in men’s volleyball in 2014, Sander carried the Cougars to the national title game after a season with 506 kills and a school-record 55 aces. Sander was a three-time, first-team All-American in his career and ranks first in school history for career kills (1,743) and service aces (182) during the rally-scoring era. He would go on to win a bronze medal as a key member of the U.S. Olympic team in 2016.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: USA250: The 10 greatest college athletes in Utah history

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