America is the best at creating the perfect environment to make the most out of your school and sports career. This is also the case for College Swimming & Diving. Take our Slamstox student-athlete Nyls Korstanje, who swam at the Olympic games last summer! He feels right at home at his university NC State. He tells you all about it in his Slamstox interview.
Besides winning swimming titles, Nyls is working hard get his bachelor’s degree at NC State. And he is happy to do so! Beside all the advantages of the perfect combination of your two passions, the best thing about swimming in America is that it is a lot of fun! But what makes College Swimming so much greater than average swimming? Keep reading to find out.
The facilities
America is the place to be for the professionalism surrounding sports. Besides being able to combine sports and studies, you can enjoy all the amazing facilities surrounding it. You will be in the pool pretty much every day, so it is super nice to have a cool environment. Think of the beautiful stadiums, locker rooms and multiple swimming pools, some of which are outdoors. All this, to create the perfect environment to help you achieve your goals. And then you have a cool stadium where all your fellow students can cheer you on. That is what will make you swim super-fast!
The swimming pool is not the only thing that looks perfect. The entire campus radiates professionality and sometimes there are special facilities just for student-athletes. You kind of get a VIP status at your American college. You can think of separate student-athlete gyms, medical rooms, dining halls, but also academic rooms to study. Because yes, in America you need to study too!
You can find one of the coolest and most luxurious facilities at Purdue University in Indianapolis. This university was also on our list of Best College Swimming facilities in America. Look at the video below, to see what that looks like. Next level!
The team spirit
In the Netherlands you have the relay, but swimming is not really a team sport besides that. In America that is quite different. You do not swim for yourself only, but you try to score points for your college team too. With that team you swim different events, where together you try to score as many points as possible. The better you score, the better the team scores. You will try to win the championship with the team, but you can also win individual titles. But the most fun part of it all is to fight together with your teammates to achieve the best results possible, like winning the conference or the national title! Below you can see all the excitement and team spirit that comes with it.
In America a team can consist of 15-25 student-athletes and you do pretty much everything with them. You practice together, eat together, study together, travel to games together en sometimes you even live together. This makes for a very close group of people. You might call it your second family. Because when you are so far from home, it is nice to have 20 people who have your back. Besides everything surrounding sports and studies, you will experience amazing adventures. Going to the mall, hiking, going out for coffee or going on a road trip when you do not have to swim for once. Together you experience many cool things and that will get you friends for life. Look at Nyls’s Instagram, where you can see all his adventures with his teammates!
The differences
College Swimming can be quite different than the ‘normal’ Olympic way of swimming. The events are the same (freestyle, backstroke, butterfly etc.), but there are some things that might be different than what you are used to. An example of that is the length of the pool. The Olympic pool has a length of 50 meters, but College Swimming they use 25 yard (22.86 meter) pools most of the time. Since the length of the pool is almost half of the normal 50 meters there is a standard rule of minimal one turn. More turning points means a faster average speed because the swimmer can come off the walls. That is one of the most fun things about College Swimming, because you can swim a lot faster.
Swimming career
College Swimming bring out the best in you. The countless (and early) practice hours will pay off and will make all the hard work totally worth it. Numerous of the most successful swimming athletes have a background as student-athlete at an American university. We can give you some nice examples of that!
In the picture above you can see 12 time Olympic medalist and ex-student-athlete Ryan Lochte. Or think of Caeleb Dressel, who won a record of 7 medals at the World Championships in Budapest 2017. Both swam for the Florida Gators swimming team of the University of Florida. With 6 Olympic medals, it is no coincidence that Amy van Dyken is in the US Olympic Hall of Fame. She started her college career at the University of Arizona. After that she transferred to Colorado State University, where she broke her first of many records.
So we named a few universities that trained a some swimming legends already. Do you want a better overview of the best College Swimming programs in America? Click here for the men’s and here for the best women’s Swimming & Diving programs of 2021!
This shows that College Swimming & Diving is the most and best way to make the most out of your swimming career. Do you want to do that? College Swimming might be something for you! And we want to help you live that dream. So let’s meet!
