After two seasons with the University of Arizona Wildcats, All-American David Schlicht has entered the NCAA transfer portal. Schlicht, a breaststroker and IM’er from Australia, raced for the Wildcats at the 2019 and 2021 NCAA Championships and has been a top contributor for the program.
Since this past season won’t count against eligibility for student-athletes, Schlicht appears to have three years of eligibility remaining. His 2021 NCAA meet was his national championship return after redshirting the 2019-20 season for the Olympics (which were pushed to 2021).
TOP TIMES (SCY)
- 200 IM – 1:41.82
- 400 IM – 3:39.59
- 100 breast – 53.53
- 200 breast – 1:52.33
- 100 back – 48.30
Schlicht’s lifetime bests in both IMs, the 100 breast and the 100 back all came from the 2020-21 season, while his 200 breast PR is from 2019.
His 2021 NCAA performance was his most impressive meet to date, where he placed fourth in the 400 IM (3:39.89) and sixth in the 200 IM (1:41.82) to contribute 28 points for the Wildcats. He made the 400 IM A-final in 2019, too, clocking a 3:41.77 to take sixth overall. At Pac-12s in both 2019 and 2021, he was runner-up in both IM events and took third in the 200 breast.
Being one of the top returning IM’ers in the country, Schlicht will be a major addition to whatever program he joins next.
FYI – he’s been training at ASU for the last month
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FSU? Lots of foreign swimmers, same terrible academics as UA.
Academics are better than years ago, but still……
UA “Where Legends are made”!
He doesn’t seem to be entered in the Olympic trials in Australia next week
I try to remember his LC times but I can’t think of any anywhere near contention .
Maybe 2024.
Good decision! RUN!
Lol. We all knew Guerra would be happy about this.
Serious question here- how does SwimSwam find out about the transfer portal students? Do the swimmers give SwimSwam the heads-up on this? Does a coach who has access to it tip-off SwimSwam?
I was also wondering about this. Who and how gets to see when an athlete enters the portal? If the athlete doesn’t talk to the Coach first then does the Coach get a surprise email? Do Coaches just monitor the portal waiting for a fresh catch?
Transfer notification happens via the athletic compliance office. Ideally the athlete would notify the coach first but as indicated, it is not required. Said athlete notifies compliance of the intent to transfer. A form is completed and it is done. I cannot speak about SwimSwam’s knowledge but I believe athletes notify them independently.
in essence nobody knows outside in the insiders if you enter portal but of course it leaks like sieve.
there are people with access who share that info or their info to someone else who can watch the portal.
Find a fried with a Portal login, ask for screen shots of the list. Post story of who’s in. Easy
You won’t get the answer from SwimSwam (nor should they answer) but it’s clear they have access to the portal. Big J Journalism. Kudos to them.
Isn’t this Jemma Schlicht’s brother? If so, paging USC…
He’ll need to improve his water bottle dodging skills first.
SC added a class on this for the fall schedule.
Ha! USC? I don’t think he is fast enough to dodge Kipp’s arsenal that he throws at defenseless swimmers in the water. Anyone looking at USC under Kipp better enroll in pre therapy sessions and invest in a good helmet!
Better yet, give USC a pass til Kipp has left the building.
I think Calypso Sheridan also transferred to USC. Isn’t she ?
She did. She was an OG Kipp recruit IIRC
Connect the dots on this one:
Personal: Born David Theodore Schlicht in September 1999 to Anthony and Katrina Schlicht in Melbourne, Australia…Has two sisters, Jemma and Sammy…Planned major is Civil Engineering because he likes construction and building…Enjoys hanging out with friends, video games, and art…Chose Arizona over ASU, Denver, USC, LSU, Wisconsin, NCU, Grand Canyon, Utah because “I believe it is the best place for me to improve my swimming.”
Calypso Sheridan from Australia via Northwestern will be a Trojan and will be in the Master’s Program in the USC School of Engineering. David Schlict is Jemma’s brother and has an Engineering Major. USC’s Engineering school is ranked #2 behind Cal Tech in SoCal….USC recruited Schlicht out of high school.… Read more »
Connect the dots? You mean right into the USC dumpster fire? Foreigner swimmers and transfers, grad school transfers (or, both), and with few American swimmers and none top-ranked. Southern Cal One and Done University. This won’t change until Temper Tantrum Kipp is fired.
I’d like to understand how an athlete entering the portal affects the current coach/athlete relationship, from ex-athletes or coaches perspective
If it’s the case that the athlete cannot be in touch with any prospective coaches:
I asked this question before, got downvoted. I’m simply trying to understand how this… Read more »
I only can give an example from one situation I was really close to, but in that case the athlete was coming off a medical redshirt and the coach had recruited over him, so kinda a combination of both the two situations you mentioned. My friend did have a great relationship with his coach but when it came down to it he was “gently” ushered out the door about a week and a half after entering the portal. He had a bunch of club teammates swimming at other schools and had kind of always stayed in touch with them and focused his search on who needed someone who swam his events and whether he could impact his conference. Ended up… Read more »
I’m sure it works any number of ways.
- Swimmer tells coach they are considering transferring. Coach says “Yup agree” = Swimmer enters portal and hopefully Coach helps swimmer find a new home
- See #1, coach says “hell no please stay, what do you need” = Swimmer may or may not enter portal
- Swimmer contacts other coaches to see what roster and $$ situations look like and then tells Coach after they have found a new home. Coach could be happy or unhappy. Swimmer doesn’t need the previous coach at that point (FTR, if I had a swimmer who wanted to transfer, this is how I’d tell them to handle it)
- Coach tells swimmer “See all these names on
… Read more »It’s worth noting that a swimmer doesn’t need the coach’s permission nor need to tell them that they’re entering the transfer portal. That’s all done through a different hierarchy that doesn’t include the coach.
FWIW, the transfer I mentioned above DID talk to an assistant about potentially transferring but not the head coach before putting his name in the portal, but that was mostly due to the timing of when he entered it.
I get that these are officially two different channels.
But there are only two ways that an athlete enters the portal: the coach is aware of it happening, or the coach is surprised. We’re kidding ourselves if there’re not back channels happening.
thank you all for the anecdotes!
#3 is an NCAA violation of the “new” coach if he/she says anything besides “we can’t talk to you until you’re in the portal”
Now…does that still happen? Probably quite a bit, and it’s probably not regulated/enforced very much at all (if ever?)
A few articles lately on how this is turning into a known but unsolvable new issue in the NCAA football/basketball world.