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Johnny Crush, a rising high school senior from Louisville, Kentucky and a Kentucky State champion, has verbally committed to Army West Point for the fall of 2024. He announced his commitment in an Instagram post made in October 2022.
I am blessed and excited to announce my verbal commitment to The United States Military Academy at West Point. I would like to thank my family, coaches, teachers, and friends for their love and support. Go Army! Beat Navy!
In last year’s rendition of our class of 2024 boys’ recruiting rankings, Crush was listed as a “Best Of The Rest” recruit for his backstroke times. Since then, he has emerged as one of the top swimmers in the class, dropping from a best time of 48.04 to a 46.55 in the 100 back during his junior season to become the second-fastest swimmer in the event for his class—only trailing Daniel Diehl. In addition, he also improved from a 1:46.57 to a 1:44.15 in the 200 back, from 21.19 to a 20.18 in the 50 free, from a 45.71 to a 43.89 in the 100 free, and from a 1:38.89 to a 1:36.53 in the 200 free. Because of his abilities in both sprint free and backstroke, he will have tremendous relay value for Army.
Crush’s Best Times (SCY)
- 50 free: 20.18
- 100 free: 43.89
- 200 free: 1:36.53
- 500 free: 4:29.42
- 100 back: 46.55
- 200 back: 1:44.15
- 100 fly: 48.28
- 200 fly: 1:46.76
Crush will have a huge impact on Army from the moment he sets foot on campus. His 100 back time is already considerably faster than Alex Edwards‘ team record time of 47.22 from this season, while his 50 and 100 free times are within striking distance of Owen Harlow‘s time records of 19.55 and 43.19.
The Patriot League has gotten multiple top recruits recently, as Army West Point also received a commitment from Kohen Rankin, the top 100 breaststroker in the high school class of 2022. In addition, Army’s rival Navy also nabbed a commitment from Ben Irwin, who is the #14-ranked recruit in the high school class of 2023 and also (alongside Asia Kozan) was the first non-Ivy League mid-major recruit to be ranked in the top 20 for their class by SwimSwam.
With Crush, Army will get one step closer towards its goal of snapping rival Navy’s 18-year win streak in the men’s Patriot League Championships. The Black Knights seriously challenged Navy’s dominance in the Patriot League this past season, beating them for the first time in 32 years at a dual meet in December and then finishing second to them by 10 points at the 2023 Patriot League Championships, where the meet on the men’s side came down to the final relay.
Crush, who attends Saint Xavier High School and swims for the Lakeside Swim Team, is one out of four swim siblings in the Crush family. His older siblings Annabel (high school class of 2021) and Charlie (high school class of 2022) swim at NC State and Louisville respectively, while his younger sister Charlotte (high school class of 2026) is the national age group record holder in the 100 and 200 back for the 13-14 U.S. age group.
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2nd best St Xavier High School
3rd Crush kid to do great things in the sport. Bringing up the rear might be the best of all of them….. Charlotte Crush. But congrats Johnny. Admirable commitment. Very few recruits with your opportunities would choose this route. God bless.
It’ll be interesting how Coach Nigro and staff are able to develop these higher level recruits. The top 100 breastroke talent of the class of ‘22 really showed me that he can recruit the top guys, but can he truly get them to their goals within the sport? Only time will tell.
It’ll be interesting to see how he develops under Coach Nigro and staff. Army had the top 100 breastroker in the nation if I remember correctly in attendance and he was unable to replicate his times from high school. But again, service academies are not all about swimming, just this website. Just seems odd how little development swimmers have at Army over their time as compared to even the other service academies with young men and women rising to the challenge these places provide.
Dropped nearly 2 seconds in his 200, only off his 100 by .2, qualified for Olympic trials already dropping over a second in under a year…
Yeah there are plenty of superstar highschool swimmers who went to “better” swimming schools and had worse seasons than Kohen. He’ll be fine.
Man I would hate to be the first team to lose in 32 years and then refer to trolling swim swam comments as “grinding”
To each their own though!
This family is crushing it!
Johnny Crush is a great name!
Congratulations!