Bragging Rights: 2017 USA Worlds Team’s College Affiliations Breakdown

There are age groupers, college kids, and pros mixed in to the 2017 U.S. Worlds Team, which is 45 swimmers (pool and open water, combined) strong. The swimming scene in the USA is dominated by the NCAA collegiate system, which typically acts as a feeder for the national team and eventual professional careers. We’ve compiled a breakdown of college affiliations from all of the swimmers on the U.S. team for Budapest, based on where they’re committed to swim, where they currently go to school or where they most recently competed as an undergrad.

In terms of conference, the SEC reigns supreme with 19 swimmers. The Pac-12 has 13 swimmers affiliated, while the Big Ten and ACC have 7 each. Texas is the sole representative for the Big 12 conference with 4 swimmers

NOTE: Open Water swimmers have been included in this breakdown. Their names are followed by an ‘OW’ to distinguish them from the pool swimmers.

HEAVY HITTERS

These are the teams with at least four swimmers headed to Budapest for the USA. Coaches from all of these schools are on the Worlds coaching staff, with Cal’s Dave Durden (men’s head coach) and Stanford‘s Greg Meehan (women’s head coach) taking leading roles.

The winners of overall bragging rights, with a landslide victory, goes to the University of Georgia. They have seven alums, one current swimmer (Jay Litherland) and one class of 2022 commit (Dakota Luther) going to Worlds this summer. As expected UGA head coach Jack Bauerle was named to the 2017 Worlds coaching staff.

GEORGIA (9)

  • Hali Flickinger
  • Dakota Luther
  • Melanie Margalis
  • Olivia Smoliga
  • Pace Clark
  • Nic Fink
  • Andrew Gemmell (OW)
  • Chase Kalisz
  • Jay Litherland

CAL (5)

  • Kathleen Baker
  • Abbey Weitzeil
  • Nathan Adrian
  • Ryan Murphy
  • Jacob Pebley

STANFORD (5)

TEXAS (4)

  • Madisyn Cox
  • Jack Conger
  • Townley Haas
  • Clark Smith

SMALLER GROUPINGS

These schools have two or three swimmers each going to Worlds. Some of them, like Florida, have swimmers who aren’t connected by age (Dressel is 20, Beisel 24, and Dwyer 28). Florida is a perennial powerhouse, though, so it makes sense to have swimmers from various different years representing. Other schools, like Texas A&M, have swimmers like Bethany Galat and Sarah Gibson who are current training partners.

Arthur Albiero (Louisville), Gregg Troy (Florida) and Ray Looze (Indiana) are on the 2017 Worlds coaching staff.

INDIANA (3)

FLORIDA (3)

  • Elizabeth Beisel
  • Caeleb Dressel
  • Conor Dwyer

AUBURN (2)

  • Zach Apple
  • Zane Grothe

LOUISVILLE (2)

  • Mallory Comerford
  • Kelsi Worrell

MIZZOU (2)

  • Hannah Stevens
  • Michael Chadwick

NORTHWESTERN (2)

TEXAS A&M (2)

  • Bethany Galat
  • Sarah Gibson

USC (2)

  • Haley Anderson (OW)
  • Becca Mann (OW)

VIRGINIA (2)

  • Leah Smith
  • Brendan Casey (OW)

SOLO DOLO

This isn’t a knock on any of the following programs– they just are being represented by a sole swimmer in Budapest. Pros like Katie Meili aren’t typically paired with their alma maters when their names come to mind, but she did swim and complete her undergrad degrees at Columbia.

ARIZONA

  • Kevin Cordes

COLUMBIA

DUKE

  • Ashley Twichell (OW)

NC STATE

  • Justin Ress

OHIO STATE

  • Tim Phillips

TENNESSEE

  • David Heron (OW)

UNC

  • Chip Peterson (OW)

WISCONSIN

  • Cierra Runge

UNATTACHED

These young stars are still in high school and have not committed to any NCAA programs (that we know of).

  • Cathryn Salladin (OW)
  • Regan Smith
  • Robert Finke
  • Simon Lamar (OW)

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SwimSwam fan
7 years ago

Think it would be helpful to show either the coach’s name for each swimmer or a breakout by gender. Some of these are not combined programs with the same coach for men and women.

Island Swimming
7 years ago

Thought it would be interesting to mention that Olivia Anderson, who is going to UGA next year, will be representing Canada at Worlds. Mackenzie Paddington (starting at Minnesota in the fall) and Kierra Smith (just graduated from Minnesota) will be as well.

Bo swims
Reply to  Island Swimming
7 years ago

Javi is also UGA. UGA should recruit from HPCO and they will have unstoppable women…

Marley09
Reply to  Island Swimming
7 years ago

Other NCAA Canadians in Budapest Bagshaw (Cal), Funk (michigan), McGregor/Pickrem (A&M), Nicol (SMU), Siwicki (minnesota), Toro (ohio state) and Wilby (head coach….Florida)

Capt America
Reply to  Marley09
7 years ago

Kennedy Goss – Canada swims Indiana I believe Indiana has several others swimming for other countries I’d love to see that list.

Max Irwin
Reply to  Capt America
7 years ago

I believe that these Hoosiers have qualified:
Anze Tavcar- Slovenia
Marwan ElKamash- Egypt
Ali Khalafalla- Egypt
Mohamed (Misho) Samy- Egypt (I think he qualified, but I may be wrong; he’s been home most of the summer.)

Kennedy Goss- Canada, just missed WC with some high-placing finishes at Trials, but IS going to WUGS.

Vini Lanza- Brazil, just missed WC, but will possibly be selected for WUGS.

While not a topic of this article, IU is also sending 2 divers to Budapest. Mikey Hixon and Jess Parratto each made the team in the 3m and 10m, respectively, both individual and synchro, with Sam Dorman (U. Miami) and Tarrin Gilliland (high school) resp. as partners. Mikey will also dive 1m individual.

jimmycrackcornandidont
7 years ago

you should list all who made the 3 teams this summer; where they are going to school and who is coached by them

mcgillrocks
7 years ago

Not strictly relevant, but…

1. I was astonished to see Beisel is only 24. I thought it must have been a typo. I guess when you’re the youngest to make an Olympic team you can make a lot of national teams and still be young.

2. Same for Chip Peterson. He was the big thing in OW in 2005 and has had a little bit less success in the last 7 years. It was weird to realize first that he’s still competing, and secondly that he’s only 29.

ADSF
7 years ago

Isn’t Simon Lamar committed to Stanford?

Admin
Reply to  ADSF
7 years ago

He says that he isn’t.

ADSF
Reply to  Braden Keith
7 years ago

Isn’t yet? Or not at all? Isn’t there is an article on SwimSwam a few days ago on his commitment to Stanford?

BarryA
Reply to  ADSF
7 years ago

ADSF – There was a SwimSwam article by Anne Lepesant dated July 5, 2017 saying he committed. (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://swimswam.com/junior-worlds-bronze-medalist-simon-lamar-verbally-commits-stanford/) It appears to have been renamed/deleted/moved, or something. Braden wrote in his comment “He says…”. So it would appear that was fact-checked. Going along with the whole ‘bragging rights’ aspect from the intro, bragging rights would only belong to the team that got him on to the Worlds team, FAST (Fullerton, CA). Also, even if he had committed, there’s no way to predict if he would actually enroll, attend, compete for, and graduate from Stanford.

crooked donald
7 years ago

If you want to have a great NCAA and a U.S.i international team career, you’d be stupid not to consider Georgia. They have it dialed in.

WaitAMinute
Reply to  crooked donald
7 years ago

Unless you are a sprint freestyler, aside from that, arguably the current best producing college.

Sparkle
Reply to  WaitAMinute
7 years ago

Is Olivia Smoliga not a sprinter?

crooked donald
Reply to  Sparkle
7 years ago

Exactly. I wouldn’t peg Georgia as a bad place for sprinters. We should’ve learned by now from the Troy-can’t-coach-sprinters outcry when Dressel went there.

SUNY Cal
Reply to  crooked donald
7 years ago

Academically, Stanford & Cal are much better choices for your life after swimming thou.

crooked donald
Reply to  SUNY Cal
7 years ago

On average, sure. So are the Ivy’s. But in the last 20 years, Georgia has produced 9 Rhodes Scholars, 5 Gates Cambridge Scholars, 6 Marshall Scholars, 3 Mitchell Scholars, 51 Goldwater Scholars, 13 Truman Scholars, 13 Udall Scholars and 36 Boren Scholars. 112 UGA students were offered Fulbright Scholarships in the past 15 years. It’s one of the top producers of U.S. Fulbright students by type of institution. If you’re smart and hardworking, there will be loads of opportunities after graduation.

swamfan
Reply to  crooked donald
7 years ago

^exactly. Cal and Stanford are without a doubt excellent schools. But if you’re smart and hardworking you can get a good education and succeed whereever you go. Especially a large-state university with lots of resources such as Georgia.

Speed Racer
Reply to  SUNY Cal
7 years ago

Summer reading assignment for you. Malcolm Gladwell and Frank Bruni.

Sparkle
Reply to  Sparkle
7 years ago

Forgot to mention Kara Lynn Joyce, Maritza Correia, Amanda Weir, Allison Schmitt, Morgan Romano, Shannon Vreeland, Chantal Van Landhegam…

Swimnerd
Reply to  Sparkle
7 years ago

Don’t see too many guys on that “sprint list”

swimdawg
Reply to  crooked donald
7 years ago

Should be placing higher at NCaas on the mens side. They do not because they put more emphasis on the 500 free and 400Im than the relays which are worth double and reward those with the most talent on their team…

womens team… greatness

Aquatics
7 years ago

Shouldn’t Taylor Abbott from Tennessee (and Coach Tyler Fenwick) be on this list?

Admin
Reply to  Aquatics
7 years ago

Aquatics – as far as we know, Taylor Abbott is going to the World University Games rather than the World Championships. This list is for the World Championships.

Swimswum
7 years ago

Grevers is AZ, just like Grothe is now Indiana.

About Karl Ortegon

Karl Ortegon

Karl Ortegon studied sociology at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, graduating in May of 2018. He began swimming on a club team in first grade and swam four years for Wesleyan.

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