Champs! Michigan Wolverines Win 2013 Men’s NCAA Championship

The Michigan Wolverines, for the 12th time in program history, are the NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming and Diving Champions.

Head coach Mike Bottom joins a long line of legendary Michigan coaches to have won titles; this is the program’s 12th, which breaks a tie with Ohio State for the most ever. He joins Matt Mann, Gus Stager, and John Urbanchek as men to have guided the sport’s most storied collegiate program to titles.

On his staff is Josh White, the guru of distance. When Bottom took over this program, he didn’t grab White from the usual big-name programs. Instead, he found Dr. White out west in California, where he was the head coach of Division III program Pomona-Pitzer. Bottom is truly a complete head coach. Not only in what he gets out of his swimmers, but the ability to identify that kind of talent.

White was in charge of the training of Connor Jaeger, who won two of Michigan’s three event titles at this meet. That brings the Wolverines to 163 event titles: also more than any other program in the world.

Mark Hill is the other assistant for the men’s program; after sacrificing for three years as a volunteer, Hill joined the staff full-time this year when the men’s and women’s programs merged. He came to Michigan after getting to know Bottom in the Florida Keys. There, Bottom was a coach at the famed Race Club, and Hill was the head Age Group Coach of a club in Key Largo and a high school coach on Islamorda. Not exactly the resume you’d expect to be brought in to Michigan, but after one year of working together at the Race Club, Bottom knew he’d found gold.

Hill has also been a spear-head for much of the “fun” that Michigan has used over the years to attract recruits and publicity to the program and that kept the team mentally fresh.

If ever there were a swimming program that could give credit to every member of the team, it was this one. This season started off rocky for the Wolverines, as all of their upperclassmen were suspended for a week early in the year. Most swim coaches would be nervous to lose control of their athletes’ training for that long, but Bottom certainly got their attention. From then on, there was not a more positive, cohesive, and enthusiastic team than these Wolverines.

All-Time NCAA Champions
1. Michigan 11 (’13, ’95, ’61, ’59, ’58, ’57, ’48, ’41, ’40, ’39, ’38, ’37)
2. Ohio State 11 (’62, ’56, ’55, ’54, ’52, ’50, ’49, ’47, ’46, ’45, ’43)
3. Texas 10 (’10, ’02, ’01, ’00, ’96, ’91, ’90, ’89, ’88, ’81)
4. USC 9
5. Auburn 8
6. Stanford 8
7. Indiana 6
8. Cal 4
9. Yale 4
10. Florida 2
T-11. Arizona 1
T-11. Tennessee 1
T-11. UCLA 1

From the Water Carnival, to the 20-yard record-breaking meet, to the “First Chance” meet, to their Big Ten and NCAA titles, Michigan never looked anything less than sharp. That 20-yard meet was really something special. At a time of year when the Wolverines weren’t expecting to be all that fast, when they were a little broken down, that meet gave them the opportunity to actually break records. When you think you’re exhausted and still are told your team broke a dozen National Records, there’s nothing like that psychologically.

Most NCAA Event Titles

1. Michigan 153
2. Stanford 147
3. Ohio State 118
4. USC 115
5. Texas 103

Here’s the full Michigan roster, who were crowned National Champions. The Wolverines only graduate 7 off of their roster, and with a monstrous senior class next year, they’ll be back near the top of the country.

Hassaan Abdel Khalik
RS JR
Kevin Bain SO
Dylan Bosch FR
Peter Brumm FR
Paul Corbae FR
Kyle Duckitt JR
Jonathon Ekleberry RS SO
Reid Elliott FR
Timothy Faerber FR
Ryan Feeley SR
Sean Fletcher SR
Richard Funk SO
Aaron Ghiglieri FR
Justin Glanda SO
Evan Gregg SR
Connor Herman FR
Connor Jaeger JR
Thomas Jahnke JR
Ryutaro Kamiya JR
Zach Kelch RS SO
Nick Killeen FR
Keltan Lawler FR
Jack Lee JR
Anders Lie Nielsen FR
Connor McCarroll SR
Matt McNamara FR
Daniel Miller RS FR
David Moore RS SO
Andrew Novakoff SR
Bruno Ortiz SO
Miguel Ortiz SR
Adam Oxner RS SO
Henry Parker FR
Jeremy Raisky RS FR
Will Raynor FR
Nate Rietberg JR
James Ross JR
Sean Ryan JR
Paul Soley FR
Zachary Turk GS
Kyle Whitaker JR
Roman Willets SR
John Wojciechowski JR
Michael Wynalda JR
Matt Zimmerman FR

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10 years ago

Congrats to Michigan fans!

Braden,
it will be good to make a summary of how many scoring seniors each team is losing.
Michigan is losing 4, Auburn 2…that can make a big difference next year.

Jim
10 years ago

The entire coaching staff, the Seniors, and every one of these guys worked so hard for this. A great group of men.

Rafael
10 years ago

First title after that crazy Olympic generation of 1995.. good job..

Nigel Tufnel
10 years ago

Woah! Wood in the water! Congrats Meechigan!

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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