Maggie Mac Neil was disappointed in how her senior year NCAA Championships unfolded.
With an extra year of eligibility remaining, she decided a change of scenery would be good, something new and away from the familiar.
Originally set to transfer to Cal, she decided to change to LSU and her former coach at Michigan, Rick Bishop.
It turns out that a blend of new and familiar was what it would take to get Mac Neil back on track.
“Honestly, I couldn’t have made a better decision for myself. The Cal situation was unfortunate, but I wasn’t there yet and I was able to come down to Baton Rouge,” Maggie Mac Neil told Swimming World. “Swimming is back to where it should be. I am looking at last year being what I shouldn’t have been doing and I am back and really enjoying this new team.
“After Rick left, I really debated whether to take a fifth year. The way last year ended was not on my terms. I broken elbow and the worst meet of my life was not how I wanted to end. This year is about the redemption of that. I know I can go faster than a 48.8 and I am chasing what I thought I could do last year.”
After winning two NCAA championships as a junior and being named Swimmer of the Meet, Mac Neil finished third in the 50-yard freestyle (21.38), 10th in the 100-yard freestyle (47.42) and third in the 100-yard butterfly (49.18).
A return to the tutelage of Bishop has already seen big payoffs early in the college season.
“Our personalities are just very similar,” Maggie Mac Neil said. “I always want to improve and he wants to help me get to where I know I can be. It is all business and we don’t deal with any crap. He learned how I needed to be trained (in Ann Arbor). That is what I missed most last year. He wasn’t there physically and I wasn’t being heard. That was the biggest challenge I had to overcome last year.”
Mac Neil loves challenges and that led her to the 2022 FINA Swimming World Cup stop in Toronto. She flirted with the short-course world record in the 100 butterfly and got to swim in front of her friends and family.
“This was my first big international meet in Canada. It was due. The fans were amazing and the meet went well. I was super excited that there were so many international swimmers who had never been to Toronto before,” she said. “I was definitely feeding off of the energy in the pool. Of course, I wanted to win at home. That was always in the back of my mind. I wasn’t really nervous, just focusing on the process of doing. It is getting good short-course meters racing opportunity. When I don’t have pressure on myself that is when I do the best. But I was really surprised to be that close to a world record.”
The racing brought the best out of her as she faced off against swimmers like Sweden’s Louise Hansson, a former NCAA champion in the 100 butterfly in her own right.
“It definitely helps. That is the reason everyone wants to do it. Since there was no ISL this year, there has been a bigger turnout in World Cups this year. This is about practicing swimming the best in the world. I have been NCAA, pro swim, international, it all blends together in this series,” Maggie Mac Neil said.
Of course, in the middle of the college season, she had to switch racing gears from short-course yards to short-course meters. Something that seems easy, but always provides and bit of an extra challenge.
“It is definitely challenging and I always underestimate how tough the difference is. I went from a college dual meet on Thursday and flew right to Toronto. The first day I spend all the time practicing my backstroke turns. I would have gone faster last time in short-course meters in the 50 back if I remembered that,” she said. “It took a day to get used to it. But my fly turns felt better, so that wasn’t as hard.”
But between her college races and World Cup races, Mac Neil is poised for a faster finish to her collegiate career.
“I was surprisingly pleased with how I was doing. I am already hitting times that I had at NCAAs last year. School is great. I am loving my program. Masters of Science and Sports Management,” Maggie Mac Neil said. “Freshman year seems like 100 years ago. But things I do impact the team and we are trying to build something at LSU. I didn’t know who Brooks Curry was until Toronto and now we have the fastest male-female duos. It is interesting how we ended up here together. It is a path I never anticipated.”
And that path will also take a stop at the 2022 FINA Short Course World Championships in Melbourne.
While Mac Neil isn’t thrilled about another break in her training for NCAAs, she is embracing every opportunity to race – and starting to take some opportunities out of the pool as well.
“Kelsey Wog and I are going to stay a couple days and go snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. I am trying to do more things like that and not have every trip be just about swimming,” Maggie Mac Neil said. “But I am excited to see what we can do at worlds.”
With an Aussie trip to experience their facilities and the beauty of the Barrier Reef – she may be tempted to wonder if QLD is the next location.