Headlined by California Berkeley and the University of Georgia, twenty different NCAA teams will be have at least one representative that will compete on their squad for the upcoming college season on the 2014-2015 U.S. National Team. The Bears (10 swimmers) and the Bulldogs (8) each have at least double the number of swimmers of every other team on the list.
Looking deeper at the list:
- Overall, there are 43 athletes competing in the 2014-2015 NCAA season who made the team (19 men, 24 women)
- Cal (6 men), Georgia (4) and Texas (3) are the only three teams with more than one male athlete
- Cal (4 women) and Georgia (4), are the only two teams with more than two female athletes
- The four “power conferences” in swimming (Big Ten, Pac 12, ACC, and SEC) all have at least three teams represented
- Interestingly, the #3 (Florida), #4 (Michigan), and #6 (Auburn) teams from men’s NCAA’s a year ago don’t have a representative
- Cal leads the way in total individual events qualified, with 18 different individual swims
- The SEC, Pac 12, and Big Ten lead the way with five teams represented from each conference
To again clarify the National Team selection process: the top 6 athletes are selected in all Olympic events from the 2014 U.S. National Championships and 2014 Pan Pac Championships results combined. Times from prelims and finals (A, B, or C) were all considered, but relay lead-offs, time trials, and swim-offs were not.
Full U.S. National Team roster here.
Men From NCAA Teams
| Swimmer | Event(s) | College Team |
| Kevin Cordes | 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke | Arizona |
| Connor Green | 200 backstroke | Cal |
| Jacob Pebley | 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke | Cal |
| Janardan Burns | 1500 freestyle | Cal |
| Josh Prenot | 200 breaststroke, 200 IM, 400 IM | Cal |
| Ryan Murphy | 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke | Cal |
| Seth Stubblefield | 50 freestyle | Cal |
| Chase Kalisz | 200 butterfly, 200 IM, 400 IM | Georgia |
| Gunnar Bentz | 400 IM | Georgia |
| Jay Litherland | 400 IM | Georgia |
| Nic Fink | 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke | Georgia |
| Ben Colley | 200 butterfly | North Carolina |
| Jordan Wilimovsky | 1500 freestyle, Open Water 10k | Northwestern |
| DJ Macdonald | 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke | Ohio State |
| David Heron | Open Water 10k | Tennessee |
| Clay Youngquist | 200 freestyle | Texas |
| Jonathan Roberts | 200 backstroke | Texas |
| Matt Ellis | 100 butterfly | Texas |
| Reed Malone | 200 freestyle, 400 freestyle | USC |
Women From NCAA Teams
| Swimmer | Event(s) | College Team |
| Kaylin Burchell | 200 breaststroke | Alabama |
| Cierra Runge | 400 freestyle, 800 freestyle | Cal |
| Elizabeth Pelton | 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke | Cal |
| Missy Franklin | 100 freestyle, 200 freestyle, 100 backstroke, 200 backstroke | Cal |
| Rachel Bootsma | 100 backstroke | Cal |
| Courtney Weaver | 200 butterfly | Georgia |
| Hali Flickinger | 200 butterfly, 400 IM | Georgia |
| Maddie Locus | 50 freestyle | Georgia |
| Olivia Smoliga | 100 backstroke | Georgia |
| Gia Dalesandro | 100 butterfly | Indiana |
| Tina Bechtel | 100 butterfly, 200 butterfly | Kentucky |
| Clara Smiddy | 100 backstroke | Michigan |
| Emma Reaney | 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke | Notre Dame |
| Lia Neal | 100 freestyle | Stanford |
| Simone Manuel | 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle | Stanford |
| Molly Hannis | 200 breaststroke | Tennessee |
| Lisa Bratton | 200 backstroke | Texas A&M |
| Katy Campbell | 800 freestyle | UCLA |
| Chelsea Chenault | 200 freestyle | USC |
| Kendyl Stewart | 100 butterfly | USC |
| Courtney Bartholomew | 200 backstroke | Virginia |
| Leah Smith | 200 freestyle, 400 freestyle, 800 freestyle | Virginia |
| Ivy Martin | 50 freestyle | Wisconsin |
| Eva Fabian | Open Water 10k | Yale |
Breakdown By Team
| Count | |||
| Team | Men’s | Women’s | Total |
| Cal | 6 | 4 | 10 |
| Georgia | 4 | 4 | 8 |
| Texas | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| USC | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Tennessee | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Stanford | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Virginia | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Northwestern | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Ohio State | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| North Carolina | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Arizona | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Wisconsin | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| UCLA | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Michigan | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Texas A&M | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Notre Dame | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Alabama | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Indiana | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Kentucky | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Yale | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 19 | 24 | 43 |
Braden, don’t slam club coaches for trying to protect their clubs. While there are some whose egos need their names on the list, there are others who are battling parent boards trying to justify money spent on cross country travel for college kids to go to Grand Prix meets and Nationals in the summer. Having those college kids home makes a huge impact on the age group swimmers, and for some colleges, it creates a powerful pipeline (i.e. NBAC and St Pete Aquatics with Georgia). And for some college programs, the kids come back in better shape for the NCAA season than they would had they stayed with their college team during the summer (not a slam against college coaches,… Read more »
I understand that the purpose of this list is just to inform your readers about what college athletes have also qualified for the US National Team; but, it is not a list of athletes that these universities helped to get ON the US National Team, because you’ve uncluded freshmen who owe their success to club teams, but not first year grads. As a result, it doesn’t really show the success of the various colleges in furthering the careers of their swimmers. This is not a criticism, just an observation.
Do these athletes get any financial support from USS, or just swag and the privilege of representing their country?
I agree with DanJohnRob. Too much attention to the college program coach. One should not be listed under a University that they haven’t even trained with yet.
weirdo & DanJohnRob – you’re looking at this as a matter of “giving credit,” which is not our mission here at SwimSwam. Lots of coaches are very concerned about “which coach gets credit” and “which coach gets love”. The average sports fan doesn’t really care. Coaches patting themselves on the back doesn’t help the sport grow. The average swim fan would rather know where to look this coming season for the U.S. National Team swimmers than know what college or club team that they swam for in the past. If that’s all anybody focuses on, you’ll wind up with a bunch of fans who only care when their coach is getting that back patting, and won’t be paying attention to… Read more »
I agree with you in part but the coach they list isn’t really necessarily their coach at all…I know that for a fact!
weirdo – that’s absolutely correct, and is one of my biggest concerns about the administrative side of swimming. Swimmers should be forced to represent the team and the coaches that they train with. Then we don’t have to deal with these sorts of confusions. It’s one of the major road blocks to the growth of professional swimming.
Braden, I did understand the purpose of the list, and stated that in my comment. My point in commenting was simply to clarify that the list doesn’t necessarily represent how well/poorly these colleges train their athletes. Michigan, Florida, etc DID get swimmers/more swimmers on the Nat Team, but they may have been graduating seniors. And I REPEAT, I was NOT criticizing your work; I am extremely grateful for it! I just like to try to contribute with my comments.
Danjohnrob – no worries. Just wanted to interject our thought processes into the discussion, especially for those who read the site but don’t comment as frequently or thoughtfully to the comments as you do and who might not have a full grasp of what we were trying to accomplish with this list.
The Dawgs did pretty well without Coach Bauerle on deck…..present swimmers and post grads. They were definitely hot this summer….way to keep it going.
What about jaeger?
Jersey fan – Jaeger is graduated.
So is Emma Reany, no?
Emma Reaney still has one year of eligibility remaining. Her trip to SwimMAC was for the summer, and she’s still listed on Notre Dame’s roster for 2014-2015.
Janardan Burns from Cal also made the national team, placing 6th in the 1500m free. That gives Cal 6 undergrads