Hanna House Released From Notre Dame; Eligible To Compete For Her Freshman Season At Duke In Fall

The third times a charm for Carmel Swim Club’s Hanna House. She has a had a wild recruiting journey, but now believes she has found a good fit for herself at Duke. The soon-to-be college freshman will start in the fall and should be a contributor right away for the Blue Devils.

Originally, House verbally committed to swim for the Virginia Cavaliers. She later decided against Virginia and signed with Notre Dame. Now she feels confident that her third choice, Duke, is the right place for her and that she is in an environment where she can succeed.

She did sign a National Letter of Intent to swim for Notre Dame but was released a little more than a month ago because she knew Notre Dame was not the right fit for her.

“I re-explored my options and fell in love with Duke, the campus, the team, and the direction the program is headed. I have received a waiver from the ACC intra conference rule to be eligible to compete my freshman year at Duke and I cannot wait to be a Duke blue devil!” – Hanna House

House’s impact on the ACC as a freshman will still be significant, it will now just be for a different team. House is the defending Indiana High School runner-up in both the 100 fly and the 100 back for state powerhouse Carmel High School.

House’s best times in yards:

  • 100 back – 54.1
  • 200 back – 1:58.9
  • 100 fly – 54.6
  • 200 fly – 2:00.6
  • 200 IM – 2:02.9

This makes the class of 2014 arguably the best recruiting class in Duke women’s history, and certainly in recent history (after another class that could make a similar claim last fall). Others signed include Leah Goldman, Catie Miller, and Maria Sheridan. Read more about the rest of Duke’s class here.

In December of 2013, Duke announced that they were increasing the number of women’s scholarships from two to the “fully funded” fourteen scholarships.

“Duke University is fully committed to providing the most complete educational and athletic opportunities for women,” said Duke’s Athletics Director Kevin White. “Adding both softball and new scholarships will enhance and enrich the collective experiences for female student-athletes. Specifically, softball will be a great addition to our varsity programs because it is played at the highest level in the Atlantic Coast Conference.”

While House said that announcement is exciting to her and that it will “change the future of Duke swimming,” she didn’t even learn about Duke’s increased scholarship count until after deciding to commit there.

The Duke women have done fairly well despite being at a less-than-full scholarship lode. They have struggled with depth at the ACC level a bit (they were just 7th as a team last year), but have consistently sent swimmers and divers to NCAA’s. That includes one diver, Abby Johnston, who dove at the 2012 Summer Olympics. To do so with just two scholarships is fairly incredible.

The move could be tantalizing for establishing an east-coast equivalent of the powerful Stanford program: a school that attracts high-level recruits for academics, while still offering the ability to put premier-level focus on athletics (though, the obvious trade-off is that Palo Alto is generally speaking a nicer area than Durham).

Though there was no indication on whether there’s a direct connection, Duke football had its best season in over 50 years, and qualified for the ACC Championship game. That is likely to result in significant new revenues for the athletics department.

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Hastomen
9 years ago

How can one find out which programs are fully funded and which aren’t?

Admin
Reply to  Hastomen
9 years ago

Hastomen – best way is to ask the coaches. There’s no good database, and coaches are very, very hesitant to share with us either.

Hastomen
Reply to  Braden Keith
9 years ago

I’m sure people on this site know programs that aren’t fully funded. Can anyone name those here, particularly women’s programs?

9 years ago

I would take self interest over a school’s interest any day.

Anonymous
9 years ago

It’s hard to believe that she wasn’t aware of Duke’s increased scholarship count considering it was all over the swimming world. She clearly looked into the school a great deal and there is no way she wouldn’t have found an article online while looking up details about the program.

Swimmerboy
9 years ago

Way too harsh. First of all, you can’t sign three times, just once, so technically she has only switched one time. Switching schools is a hard thing and we don’t know what caused her to make that decision and therefore have no place to judge.

Not too harsh
Reply to  Swimmerboy
9 years ago

OK – technically, she has only signed 2 NLIs. But that doesn’t hide the fact that 4 flip-flops have occurred (ND/UVa/back to ND/now Duke). Sure, she’s an 18-year-old kid and they can change their minds on lots of things, but how ’bout not signing/announcing on social media until you are sure? Some schools will not release you from an NLI without a pretty good reason (e.g., family emergency), and if they do, you sit out a year, especially if you switch schools in the same conference. Why does she get a free pass from ND/the ACC? Kind of renders the intent of the NLI meaningless. Also kind of looks like she is trolling for the best deal.

Not sure
9 years ago

Changing your mind once, I can see. Twice? Starting to smell fishy. Three times? One gets the sense that commitment is a meaningless concept to her and/or her parents. If I were the college coach that signed her (and there are now three of them), I would wonder where she will want to go after her freshman year if things don’t work out. After all, there are about 8 or 9 other schools in the ACC alone to chose from.

SwimFan
Reply to  Not sure
9 years ago

Way to harsh on the kid. Read her comments – re-evaluated as the direction of Duke’s program became more clear. I suspect that Duke’s improved funding status made the direction of their program more appealing than when she first was deep down the road with either UVA or Notre Dame.

Swimmerboy
Reply to  Not sure
9 years ago

I think you are being too harsh. First of all you can’t sign 3 times, only once. Backing off a verbal commitment is not that big of a deal and no one knows what really happened for her to come to that decision to switch, which is not an easy thing to do. It is not anyone else’s place to judge her situation. Good for Hanna for finding the right place

SwimFan
9 years ago

Relax, it is just a teenage girl trying to make the right decision for her and apparently has the courage to recognize and act upon what she wants rather than concede she had cast her decision irrevocably.

Perhaps Duke was the first choice all along but the funding status improvement was not as clear last summer?

In fairness to these kids they are afforded a very restricted process to form a decision. A normal student is not going to have so much of their happiness tied up in the demands of sport where a poor fit can drag down their college experience and has well past November to make their final decision. And these kids only really start the… Read more »

James
9 years ago

An athlete should have a good degree of freedom to move around and look for the best fit/deal. I realize swimming isn’t like a football – a sport bringing in big money and revenue for the school. But athletic success benefits the university greatly…more alumni money, more positive press, etc. Especially high profile athletes – like Missy Franklin – are potentially worth a lot more than a simple scholarship they are provided to the school.

9 years ago

i know it is huge decision to make a by young person but you got your visits, you can research, facebook current swimmers, you got time to think… and still it is this hard….

About Tony Carroll

Tony Carroll

The writer formerly known as "Troy Gennaro", better known as Tony Carroll, has been working with SwimSwam since April of 2013. Tony grew up in northern Indiana and started swimming in 2003 when his dad forced him to join the local swim team. Reluctantly, he joined on the condition that …

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