Sophomore-to-be Gracie Redding will transfer from Florida State to Florida Gulf Coast, she told SwimSwam on Thursday.
The move will take her from Tallahassee, in the state’s panhandle, to Fort Myers, on the Gulf Coast side of the southern tip of the state.
Redding is primarily a sprint freestyler, with a secondary stroke of butterfly. Her best times in yards:
- 50 free – 23.30
- 100 free – 50.69
- 200 free – 1:49.85
- 500 free – 4:55.30
- 100 fly – 55.32
In her one year at Florida State, Redding swam lifetime bests in the 50 free, 100 free, and 100 fly. That included a drop of almost a second in the 100 free at the mid-season Georgia Invite and a best time in the 100 fly very early in her college career at the SMU Women’s Classic in October.
Redding was the team’s 4th-fastest 100 freestyler from a flat-start and 5th-fastest 50 freestyler from a flat-start last season. She was not on Florida State’s scoring team at the ACC Championships, instead racing as an exhibition-only swimmer.
At Florida Gulf Coast, she would’ve been similarly the team’s 5th-best 50 freestyler, as well as their 6th-best 100 freestyler. While Florida State resides in a power 5 conference and has a much longer swimming history (Florida Gulf Coast as a University was established in 1991), the Eagles beat the Seminoles in the teams’ last head-to-head matchup in November 220.5-132.5.
Both teams sent only individual swimmers to last year’s NCAA Championships; Florida State didn’t score any points, while Florida Gulf Coast picked up a single mark on the tally board to tie for 47th place.
Also on Thursday, All-American Jason Coombs confirmed that he was leaving the Florida State men’s program via retirement with a year of eligibility remaining; and in March, All-American Chelsea Britt announced that she would transfer (though has not said where to yet).
Coach Studd is quietly building a new swimming powerhouse in FL….they are getting ready to kick the door down.
Umm….again this is exactly what is wrong with college swimming. Coaches don’t get fired. Athletic departments don’t care. No we don’t expect everyone to be Eddie Reese or young phenoms like Holloway at NC State, but if your team is falling apart (FSU) or if the team has potential but not made any progress for a decade (UNC, Auburn, etc) a change should be made. There are lots of great young and old coaches out there. When it’s obvious it’s obvious to everyone but Athletic directors.
Sergio should be the new head coach at FSU not the head associate at Auburn
I’m am very suprised that with all these transferrings and swimers retireng that more people haven’t tried to come to move to Raleigh. Coach Holloway is been done amazing things with their program in Raleigh at NC State.
Some have. Eugene Godsoe and Caleb Weir are there right now.
Caleb Weir? You mean Amanda’s little brother?
Because they will have to sit out a year because it’s an ACC school
…why is this news? Are the swimmers going to SwimSwam to make a publicity statement to FSU? If so, why is SwimSwam playing into this?
Because without regular access to news, most people would be unaware of the various events taking place, locally, state wide, and around the world, that may or may not have impact on their lives or decisions to make.
My point is that SwimSwam is obviously playing into the fact that something’s up with FSU, and instead of simply writing a potentially offensive story about the situation, SwimSwam is choosing to report on transfers that would otherwise be totally insignificant.
I completely understand why they don’t want to get involved with a potentially difficult environment within a specific team, but this cherry-picked reporting is painfully obvious.
It is possible they know something is up with FSU but do not have source(s) to confirm what is happening (aka journalistic integrity)
But, they can report what they do know – folks are leaving FSU. Hopefully FSU either fixes the problem or sources at FSU reach out to media to tell the story.
Yes there is a problem with FSU swim program. Its COACH FRANK BRADLEY . I’m shocked he has now lost both his best male swimmer Jason Coombs an best female swimmer All American Chelsea Britt ..
Swimswam reports on every transfer and NLI signing that gets sent to them. This article isn’t part of a conspiracy.
Something fishy going on at FSU…
Seems like there are some problems at FSU, anyone know what they might be?