By Kevin Donnelly, Swimming World College Intern.
The winter high school swimming and diving season is beginning to wind down, but not before many athletes across the country take the blocks to take aim at some insanely fast USA high school swimming national records.
The USA high school swimming records list for the eleven high school events competed nationwide includes names such as Olympic gold medalists and NCAA champions Katie Ledecky, Missy Franklin, and Ryan Murphy, among others. The list is broken into two subcategories: independent high schools and public high schools, and features a total of 44 records (22 per gender, with 11 being for independent schools and 11 for public schools).
Today we’ll take a look at that the list and determine which states across the United States hold the most records on the list. The table is featured below:
| State | TOTAL | Independent Schools | Public Schools | Female | Male |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 12 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 5 |
| Florida | 7 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 7 |
| Pennsylvania | 5 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 5 |
| Indiana | 5 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| Maryland | 4 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| North Dakota | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Minnesota | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Tennessee | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Colorado | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Illinois | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Kentucky | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Wisconsin | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Analysis:
Twelve states hold at least one of these 44 records. Unsurprisingly, California and Florida lead the way on this list, with twelve and seven records being represented by those states, respectively. Indiana and Pennsylvania are both tied for third, with five records apiece. Maryland sits in fifth with four records, and North Dakota is just behind them with three, all from star high school swimmer Dagny Knutson.
One interesting takeaway from the list is that all seven of Florida’s records are held by males. Three individuals share five individual records for the state of Florida, all three of whom are Olympic gold medalists: Caeleb Dressel, Murphy, and Joseph Schooling. The other two are relay records held by the Bolles School, of which both Murphy and Schooling were a part of (Dressel attended Clay High School, a public school in the same area, but swam for the Bolles School Sharks year-round team with Murphy and Schooling).
Photo Courtesy: Florida Swim Network Instagram
Overall eight Olympic gold medalists are represented on the list. Seven of those eight represented the United States in competition. Interestingly, all seven of those won at least one of their gold medals on a relay for Team USA at the 2016 Olympic Games.
All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.
Your public school boys 200 free relay is not correct. This was broken by North Allegheny HS in March of 2017 at the PIAA Championship meet with a time of 1:20.94 by Jack Wright, Rick Mihm, Maxwell Gonzalez, and Eben Krigger.
This record was then broken in December by North Allegheny HS with different swimmers. They also broke the 400 free relay record as well.
Thank you.
Corrected time is 1:20.95
The correct time for the 200 free relay is 1:20.95