Texas Two-For: Jonathan Roberts Also Commits to Longhorns

The Texas men waited a while to ramp up their recruiting class in 2014, but in one fell swoop they’ve gotten verbal commitments from the state’s two best recruits, and North Texas Nadadores teammates. The first came earlier tonight from Brett Ringgold, and shortly after Jonathan Roberts made his intentions clear as well.

Though both have range, they sit at totally opposite ends of the freestyle spectrum. Roberts is primarily a distance freestyler: he’s been 1:36.3, 4:20.0, 8:56.6, and 15:12.0 in the 200-1650 yard freestyles.

He’s also been 1:44.4 in the 200 yard back, 1:49.1 in the 200 yard fly, and 1:50.4/3:48.4 in the 200/400 yard IM’s.

Roberts is a member of the Junior National Team and swam at the Junior World Championships. There, he took 12th in the 400 free, 13th in the 800 free, and 10th in the 1500 free. He earned his way onto the team in part thanks to an explosive Junior National Championship in the 1500 free with a 15:24. That was a 20 second drop off of his best time coming into that meet.

With a 3:53.5 in the 500 free, he’s a very bright distance prospect for the United States looking toward the 2016 or 2020 Olympics.

Last year, the top two recruits in the state went to Wisconsin (Cannon Clifton and Brett Pinfold), but this year, the Longhorns have kept them in-state.

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SwimSam
10 years ago

btw… Asst. coach for the Texas Men is spelled Kubik

North Texas Nadadores coach, Bill Christensen and his staff deserve a lot of credit for the talent they have been developing. Been watching them for a while. They are doing a great job, along with a whole lot of age group and senior coaches in the state of Texas.

Keep up the good work and great results!

osd
10 years ago

<>

You probably mean the 400 free

osd
Reply to  osd
10 years ago

somehow I lost this piece –
With a 3:53.5 in the 500 free

bobo gigi
10 years ago

Great day for the university of Texas!
Brett Ringgold, a sprinter
Jonathan Roberts, a distance freestyler and also a potential great 400 IMer
Huge picks!

PsychoDad
10 years ago

Excellent news! About time to see some good swimmers from Dallas area coming down to Austin. I am sure singing Will Licon, from Texas, and Jack Conger this year helped in recruiting. Speaking of Dallas teams, Nitro is taking about 140 best swimmers this Saturday to Dallas area for a one day dual meet against the best team in Dallas, Lakeside Aquatics.

Reply to  PsychoDad
10 years ago

It seems you have a typo.
You mistyped that LAC is the best team in Dallas, where in any functioning, cognitive reality, it’d be a stretch to say they’re in the top three.

1. NTN
2. Dallas Mustangs
3. Open for debate, but Frisco would be my pick.

Back in like 2009, it would have been Plano by a country mile…

CrashDavis
Reply to  Hayden Henry
10 years ago

Agreed. LAC is a good team, but NTN is definitely the best team in Dallas. Too much weight is given to TAGS in the state of Texas. 14&U swimming is like the minor leagues of our sport. You don’t judge the strength of MLB team by how good their AAA & AA teams are, so why do we judge swimming in our state so much based on the younger age groups.
But Hayden you’ve got to be kidding about Frisco, they are very similar to LAC about 5 years ago. Good team with some nice momentum, but they don’t even belong in the discussion.

Reply to  CrashDavis
10 years ago

I thought long and hard about that third place opinion of mine. I decided on Frisco because they are a program on the rise that’s putting out some great swimmers, like Brayden Seal.
Some other programs I thought about were Rockwall and Metro. They too are programs that will be getting better not worse.

CoachGB
Reply to  Hayden Henry
10 years ago

When at TAGS it is like being at the National Age Group Championsip which US Swimming better run soon.

completelyconquered
Reply to  Hayden Henry
10 years ago

And now Coach Steve Mateer from COPS is coaching for LAC. LAC will be taking over soon enough.

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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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