Alabama Adds Verbal Commitment from Australia’s Charlie Hawke for 2021-22

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Charlie Hawke, a highly versatile swimmer from Rankin Park in New South Wales, Australia (about 2 hours north of Sydney), has announced his verbal commitment to the University of Alabama class of 2025. He will join Ben Hines, Braden Rollins, Holden Smith, Mateo Miceli, Nicklas Bohn, and Nikolas Lee-Bishop in the fall of 2021. Hawke swims for his high school St Francis Xavier’s College and the club team Hunter Swimming Club. He is a member of the New South Wales Emerging Talent Squad.

Hawke was a top-8 finisher in 8 events at last spring’s Australian Age Championships (LCM). He placed 3rd in the 100 fly, 4th in the 200 fly and 200/400 IM, 6th in the 50/200/400 free, and 8th in the 100 free. He notched PBs in all but the 100 free.

Best LCM times (converted to SCY):

• 50 fly – 25.00 (21.8)
• 100 fly – 54.73 (48.0)
• 200 fly – 2:02.35 (1:50.4)
• 200 L IM – 2:05.62 (1:47.70)
• 400 L IM – 4:26.25 (3:54.9)
• 50 free – 23.53 (20.4)
• 100 free – 51.67 (45.1)
• 200 free – 1:50.90 (1:37.0)
• 400 free – 3:59.27 (4:28.0 500 yards)

Alabama is in its first year with head coach Coley Stickles. The men moved from 6th in 2019 to 4th in 2020 at the SEC Championships. It took 19.77/43.60/1:35.71 in the freestyle events, 47.27/1:46.67 in the fly, and 1:46.21/3:51.30 in the IM to score at conference this year. Hawke will overlap with sophomores Jonathan Berneburg and Colton Stogner who scored in the sprint free at SECs. Stogner was also a C finalist in the 100 fly.

Historically, most of Australia’s top young talents have stayed in their home country to train, which was in part due to the fact that Australian selection meets in the past have frequently overlapped with NCAA Championship meets in the United States. More recently, however, Australia has shifted to later selection meets, which if not necessarily a push of Australian swimmers to the NCAA, certainly eliminates one big barrier to departures.

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