It is the first day of classes at the University of California, Berkeley, and JD Thumann is among the 14,500 freshmen on campus. That would not normally be worth a mention, but Thumann was originally a member of the high school class of 2026; he verbally committed to Cal in November 2024 and was not expected to suit up for the Golden Bears until next fall.
Reclassifying is rare in the swimming world. The most high-profile names to ever do so include Izzy Ivey joining the Cal Bears late in the 2018-19 season, Reilly Tiltman joining the Virginia Cavaliers just in time for championship meets in 2021, Daniel Diehl doing the same for NC State in 2024, and Aiden Hammer reclassifying just a few months ago.
As recently as Monday, we ranked Thumann among the top boys recruits in the class of 2026.
However, the Norman, Oklahoma native reclassified to 2025 and moved to California this summer to train at Berkeley. He is now part of a cohort of Cal newbies that includes Ryan Erisman, Kenneth Barnicle, Caiden Bowers, Norvin Clontz, Ian Platts-Mills, Casper Puggaard, Dar Lavrenko, Eduardo Moraes, Jack Brown, Julien Rousseau, Martin Wrede, Matteo Palmisani, Max Goettsch, and Nathan Wiffen.
As a reminder, Thumann was a 6-time Oklahoma High School state champion (2x 50 free, 200 free, 100 back, 2x 100 fly) while at Norman High School. He swam for Sooner Swim Club and developed into one of the strongest and most versatile swimmers in the class, with Summer Nationals cuts in the 50 free and 100 fly and Summer Juniors standards in the 100 free, 100/200 back, 200 fly, and 200 IM.
Best SCY times:
- 50 free – 19.93
- 100 free – 44.20
- 100 fly – 47.35
- 100 back – 47.81
- 200 fly – 1:46.23
- 200 back – 1:44.51
- 200 IM – 1:48.76
Cal won the men’s conference title at their first ACC Championships last February and went on to finish in 2nd place behind Texas at NCAAs. The squad was heavy in seniors / fifth-years (Jack Alexy, Destin Lasco, Dare Rose, Bjorn Seeliger, Gabriel Jett, Mewen Tomac, Matt Jensen, Samuel Quarles, Frank Applebaum, to name a few) last year so there will be many opportunities to step up.
It would seem that Thumann is up for the challenge.
Aiden hammer ahh
Real talk how do you do this there are credit graduation requirements.
Honestly for higher than average achieving high school students it’s not as difficult as you may think.
My only requirement I had after junior year of high school was senior year english, which I could have taken the summer after junior year, and started college that fall.
It’s just not common in swimming which is why some here might not be familiar. There’s not really any incentive for swimmers to enroll early compared to the NIL/Pro league deals for basketball and football.
With the advent of online school, it’s not that hard. We’ll try and get him on to talk about exactly what his approach was, but if you’re above average intelligence from a white collar, academic-minded family, you can buzz through a few online courses in the summers and skip a year no big deal. I had a pretty normal college path and I wanna say my senior year I only had 3 classes that I needed to take to graduate – the rest were all optional.
His mom is a professor at Oklahoma, so she’s even more uniquely positioned to guide him through a process like that.
15 freshman? What happened to these “roster limits”
Did you have a chance to look at their senior class from last year? Largest talent exodus in a long time.
Did Tomac actually just show up for two meets and is done?
He was listed as a graduate student on Cal’s roster last year, so yes to your question.
Think he was supposed to be a junior, but probably had some eligibility issues to work through.
15 freshman?
Check back in a year đź’€
Real question – does he graduate a year early?
I guess Hammer switched commitments to Cal for a different reason, then.
Also, Matthew Elliott should be a “newbie” this year, as far as I know
What’s the story on Eduardo Moraes?
Yeah, that was buried at the end and feels like it deserves its own article. Kind of Patrick Callan-esque.
Started in 2021-2022 season at Penn State, then went to Michigan for sophomore season, took an Olympic redshirt, and listed as Redshirt Junior last season. So should have 1 season of eligibility left at Cal.
Now on his Instagram profile he also have ‘UC Berkely Swimming’ listed. But haven’t seen any official confirmation post yet.