Cortney Jordan

Jordan competed in the 2009 Short course World Championships in the 50, 100, and 400-meter freestyles and won silver medals in each event. The following year, she was awarded two gold medals for 4x100 individual medley and the 25 meter freestyle at the 2010 World Championships.^[5]

She participated at the ParaPan Pacific Games in Guadalajara in 2011, where she captured three silver medals for the 50, and 100 freestyles and the 200 metre individual medley. At the 2011 ParaPan games, she was also awarded bronze medals in the 400 metre freestyle and 100 metre backstroke.^[5][7]

Jordan attended Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California on a swimming scholarship,^[3] where she continued to train in swimming, graduating magna cum laude in 2013. Jordan majored in Liberal Arts with a minor in Spanish, with a focus on Education.^[4] At Cal Lutheran, a Division III NCAA team, she was coached by Tom Dodd, a 1979 CSU Hayward graduate, who began as Head Swim Coach at Cal Lutheran in 2003, and was head swimming coach during Jordan's tenure with the women's varsity swim team from around 2009-2013.^[8] After her Junior year at Cal Lutheran, Cortney trained during the summer in Minnesota with the U.S. Paralympic Head Coach Tom Franke. Training with Paralympic Head Coach Franke, she attended rigorous swimming practices twice a day, improving her times to compete with the international competition at the 2012 Paralympics, realizing that the times in her classification had continued to improve. She had to miss the first two weeks of classes in her Senior year at Cal Lutheran to attend the 2012 Paralympics in London. After winning four medals at the 2012 Paralympics, she flew to Baltimore, to attend a reception for the Paralympic team members at the White House where she met President Obama.^[9][4]

In her Senior Year at Cal Lutheran, she directed the University's Writing Center while enrolled as a student.^[9] In her Senior Year at Cal Lutheran, reflecting her sound academic skills, Cortney was named the University's Scholar Athlete of the Year, and was a member of the CLU Scholar Athlete Society for her fourth successive year. Despite her handicap, in her Senior year she recorded her season best time in the 200-yard freestyle of 2:21.97 at the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Championship.^[4]

In 2013, her family moved to Baltimore, where she received a scholarship to attend Loyola University Maryland, and trained in swimming with Loyola's Coach Brian Loeffler. Loeffler, a former graduate and four-year swimmer for Loyola, coached swimming at Loyola as an Assistant Coach beginning in 1991, and as a Head Coach beginning in 1992, and had a 33 coaching history as of the 2024–5 season.^[10] Jordan completed a master's degree in Elementary Education at Loyola in May, 2016, prior to the 2016 Paralympics.^[2]

While a graduate student at Loyola Maryland, Jordan worked for Merritt Athletic Club in Towson, Maryland.^[11] At the time of the 2016 Paralympic trials, she was working teaching the fourth grade at Jessup's Bollman Bridge Elementary. She has also served as a substitute teacher at Howard County Public Schools in greater Baltimore.^[2]

In 2025, Jordan was nominated and was a finalist for the 2025 U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame.^[12]

• Cortney Jordan at Team USA (archive January 14, 2020)
• Cortney Jordan at the International Paralympic Committee
• Cortney Jordan on Instagram
• Kudialis, Chris, Las Vegas Sun, "Las Vegas Paralympian's disability was no match for her dream"