Gutter Talk: What Did Some Elite Athletes Look For When Making Their College Choices?
When choosing your college destination, what did you look for (or, what will you look for) in a school?
CHARLIE CLARK
2022 World Championships Team Member (Ohio State)
I was looking for a school that had what I needed academically, as well as a team that I thought could help me grow to my full potential as a swimmer and a person. I also wanted to make sure that the team culture aligned with my goals and that there would be people to push me every day in practice.
DAVID CURTISS
2022 SCM World Championships Team Member (NC State)
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
I looked for a team that had the energy and wanted to improve every day—the competitiveness that fueled success, the want to better their teammates and themselves. That was my main priority.
CLAIRE CURZAN
5x Medalist at 2022 World Championships (Stanford)
One of the big things that we talked about in my family was trying to find the best of both the academic and swim worlds. After your swimming career, you go off into the real world, so I wanted to find a really good school to explore my interests and hopefully set me up well for a career outside of the pool.
I also really valued a tight-knit swimming family. I wanted to be able to find teammates and coaches who not only pushed me in the pool, but also were some of my best friends and a great support system to rely on in the college environment.
MATT FALLON
2022 U.S. National Champion, 200 Breaststroke (Penn)
There are many great colleges with great swim programs. I chose Penn because of its solid academics and because I was confident that I would get the training I needed to improve.
KATIE GRIMES
2x Silver Medalist at 2022 World Championships (Uncommitted)
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
What I am looking for is a great team atmosphere, a good coaching staff, somewhere where I know that I’m going to be pushed and I’ll get better, somewhere that possibly has an outdoor pool.
LILLY KING
2016 Olympic Gold Medalist and WR Holder, 100 Breaststroke (Indiana)
I was looking at weirder things than most—at least I think I was. Probably my No. 1 thing was seeing how much the team was improving each year. The year I was being recruited, the IU breaststroke group had 100% best times. I also wanted a program that had a plan for me once I turned professional—like a pro team to represent and multiple other pro athletes to train with.
DESTIN LASCO
2022/2023 NCAA Champion, 200 Backstroke (California)
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
The full package, the academics and the athletics—that was my No. 1 priority. What’s a place that I can graduate from and get a degree and get a job after swimming and do both? And Cal was the place—having (Coach) Dave (Durden), the head Olympic coach of the Tokyo squad, and having the Berkeley prestige and the academics.
Getting into (Cal’s) Haas (School of Business), that was huge for me. The networking here is awesome, not only in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, but also in New York, Dallas or Chicago, wherever you want to work. That was honestly the main point for me.
And also the weather! In New Jersey, I always swam indoors and always had the chlorine cough…and my hair turned blonde…and I was so pale. The weather at Cal is awesome. I’m always tan throughout the year. I’m always getting sun. No chlorine cough. Those are the main aspects for me, for sure: academics, athletics and the weather.
JAKE MAGAHEY
2021 NCAA Champion, 500 Freestyle (Georgia)
Of course, there’s obvious stuff like program reputation, coaches, training style, but it’s hard to compare when many of these schools operate at such a high level. The most important thing for me was how I fit in with the rest of the team. When it really feels like you fit on the team, it makes the hard things easy.
KEVIN VARGAS
2022 U.S. National Champion, 400 IM (Florida)
I looked at team atmosphere, team culture, coaching staff, resources and campus life.