Remembering the Days — Splash! The chlorine-soaked story of USC’s swimming and diving crew – USC Information & Occasions

USC’s swimming and diving crew jumped into the deep finish of collegiate competitors
in 1922, 17 years earlier than the college even had a pool on campus. Over the years,
the crew has developed various All Americans and even some Olympic opponents. 

TRANSCRIPT

“You begin again on the board and you’ve got this factor we name a hurdle. It’s your method
to the top of the board.”

That’s Sophie Verzyl, a diver on the swimming and diving crew on the University of
South Carolina and a member of the U.S. Diving Team who has her sights set on competing
within the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. She’s describing what’s known as the Double Out
Dive, one in every of her favorites.

Sophie Verzyl: “You do a pair steps after which drive your knee to sort of begin bouncing the board,
and then you definitely take off forwards and also you flip frontwards in a pike place, which is
sort of the place you are folded over holding your legs once they’re straight. And you will
do about one and a half flips and you will come out and snap your legs, and then you definitely’ll
begin twisting and you will try this twice, and then you definitely’ll come round and see the water
after which line up your entry and go head first.”

Sophie is among the many 30 girls and 20 males who comprised USC’s swimming and diving crew
in 2025. I’m Chris Horn for Remembering the Days, and right now we’re taking a deep dive into the historical past of the crew, which traces its
roots all the way in which again to 1922.

Back then, Alex Waite was already a star on the Gamecock soccer, basketball and
monitor groups when he lobbied to determine swimming and diving as a collegiate sport
at Carolina. He and 4 different males had been the one members of the inaugural crew, which
made a splash that first yr by successful the state championship, competing in opposition to
The Citadel and the College of Charleston.

USC was a little bit of a late-comer to the game of swimming and diving. Yale and Harvard
began their groups in 1900 whereas Cornell, the University of Chicago and the University
of Wisconsin established theirs in 1901.

What may need been holding USC again was the truth that the campus didn’t have a pool
for swimming and diving. It wasn’t till 1939 that an indoor natatorium was constructed
on the south finish of what’s now Longstreet Theatre.

So, to observe, the Gamecock swimmers and divers crew used the Pacific Community
Pool, situated within the now-historic Olympia Mill Village south of campus. The pool had
been in-built 1918 for households of staff within the Olympia and Granby cotton mills.
That group very graciously allowed the USC crew to swim and dive in its pool,
which truly nonetheless exists. The previous pool doesn’t maintain water anymore, nevertheless it’s half
of the occasion area at 701 Whaley Street. USC’s authentic natatorium doesn’t maintain water
anymore, both. It closed when the Blatt P.E. Center pool was constructed within the Nineteen Seventies,
and it now serves as a storage space for props utilized in Longstreet Theater.

If you flip by Garnet & Black yearbooks from the Nineteen Twenties, you’ll see the boys on the swimming-diving crew dressed
in modest, one-piece leotards. By the Nineteen Forties, they had been sporting swimming briefs and,
by the Nineteen Seventies bikini-style fits. Women wore one-piece fits once they had been lastly
allowed to compete on the varsity degree within the Nineteen Seventies.

Head swimming and diving coach Jeff Poppell says the model of fits swimmers put on
has advanced and so has their coaching — all due to the necessity for pace.

Jeff Poppell: “Swimming simply continues to get quicker as a sport. I imply, we simply got here again from
the nationwide championships final week for the boys, and ladies the week earlier than, and the
swimming that you just’re seeing now, you already know, in 2025 is simply — it is simply thoughts blowing
to be sincere with you, you already know, how a lot it is superior from again 100 years in the past even,
what was thought-about quick then these days is simply sort of I suppose you’d say extra
developmental. It’s not superior in any means. We all the time suppose that, oh, how can we
get any quicker? But it does. It’s wonderful.”

Nils Wich-Glasen was an All-American swimmer for USC from 2018 to 2022, and he’s now
an assistant coach for the crew. 

Nils Wich-Glasen: “My private finest wouldn’t make it again into the B closing anymore. So I used to be sixth
and seventh my junior yr within the 100 and 200 breaststroke, and I believe these occasions
would have been like nineteenth and twentieth this yr. So in such a brief period of time, that is
a extremely important efficiency enhance, particularly whenever you’re speaking in regards to the
high 20, not simply the highest three.”

Collegiate diving has seen its share of change previously century, as properly. Along
with deploying far more acrobatic strategies, trendy divers have a lot better diving
boards than these used way back.

Todd Sherritt: “It needed to be, it was very primary. Based on the gear they had been going off of,
they weren’t going off these boards they make now with aluminum alloys and all of the
mixtures of metals and the holes in it. And it is designed to go down and are available again
fast. They’re diving off similar to bricks.”

That’s Todd Sherritt, who coached males’s and ladies’s diving for 28 years at Carolina
earlier than retiring in 2021. Decades in the past he gave up a dream of turning into an actual property
entrepreneur in Cincinnati to start out a club-level diving crew in Columbia, South Carolina.
In 1993, he turned the pinnacle diving coach at USC and had a outstanding profession.

Todd Sherritt: “I had 56 All-Americans, 13 SEC champions. I had six Olympians. Lots of nationwide
championships, USA, coached numerous world groups. Coached Olympic crew’s coach. Olympic
crew for South Africa, which was an honor. And then numerous world championships.
I’ve traveled to over 30 nations.”

When he was recruiting divers to USC within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, Sherritt had a
particular edge. He would take them round campus, present them the Olympic-sized pool at
the Blatt P.E. Center the place the crew practices and competes, after which introduce them
to the president of the college on the time, John Palms.

Todd Sherritt: “Palms was truly a diver himself. Yes, he was. So he would all the time come down and
speak to the divers that I carry down there. I imply, it was the best recruiting
factor on this planet. Oh, here is the president. By the way in which, do you know I used to be a diver?”

I had no concept that President Palms had been a collegiate diver when he was a cadet
at The Citadel within the Nineteen Fifties. Makes me surprise if different previous presidents at USC had been
student-athletes again of their day. We may need to discover that matter a while.

So, originally of the episode you met Sophie Verzyl, a standout diver at USC
who simply earned a level from the Moore School of Business and is about begin on a
grasp’s in sport administration. She begins coaching subsequent yr for the 2028 Olympics,
and Todd Sherritt, who recruited Sophie to USC, thinks she has a stable shot at Olympic
glory.

Sammie Grant was a freestyle swimmer on the crew from 2018 to 2022. She grew up in
Maryland, going to the seashore.

Sammie Grant: “I used to be frightened of the water. I could not go additional than, like, my ankles, so I
would get in and be scared. And my dad and mom had been like, come on. So they sort of had been
like, let’s do classes. So I began doing classes after I was like 7 or 8. I hated
them at first, however then, you already know, I received extra comfy with the water and I used to be
like, that is cool.”

Sammie didn’t go on to win fame and glory on the USC swimming and diving crew, however
she did earn a level in sport administration from USC, and that helped her land a job
working for the college’s athletics division. She’s now the media specialist
for USC’s Olympic sports activities groups — tennis and swimming and diving.

Sammie Grant: “With swimming, I really feel prefer it gave me so many connections and taught me so many
issues that I really feel like I’m nonetheless sort of utilizing right now.

“I believe being so dedicated to one thing and like having to get up early hours and
dedicate that a lot of your life to a sport, once more, I suppose tying in the truth that
I did not even actually have any stakes in it, I used to be simply doing it as a result of I preferred it.
That sort of helps translate to this trade particularly as a result of we work lengthy hours,
we’re working weekends. Your schedule is loopy. You do not actually have numerous time
for, you already know, social life whenever you’re in season working, which was the very same
factor after I was swimming. So I believe getting used to love, a schedule like that actually
helped the transition right into a job like this be like, OK, that is principally what I did
for my entire life. Like, I’m high quality working previous 5. I’m high quality working weekends. I’m
high quality dedicating a lot of my time to a job as a result of that is principally what I used to be doing.
And that made I believe the transition simpler.”

Every sport has its quirks, I suppose, and swimming and diving aren’t any totally different. Todd
Sherritt says divers are motivated in several methods, and as a coach, he needed to determine
out what made every particular person tick. He remembers one diver specifically.

Todd Sherritt: “The humorous factor about her, she dived a bit of higher if she was a bit of pissed
off. So you needed to discover some option to get that completed, to get that animal to come back
out. And then, after all, then you definitely get the opposite ones that, you already know, you must
lower a joke or one thing. They received to be not even serious about diving. Get them in
one other world. Everybody’s so totally different. But you discover out what works and what makes
them tick.”

Swimmers are typically very disciplined athletes, says Nils Wich-Glasen. They spend hours
within the pool morning and night almost every single day of the week, centered on getting quicker.
All that point within the water offers them a particular aura.

Nils Wich-Glasner: “We put on chlorine prefer it’s our fragrance, as a result of the chlorine odor may be very sturdy.
When you spend upwards of 17 hours per week within the pool, between all of the practices,
it is exhausting to eliminate.”

Chlorine cologne — I adore it!

Recent NCAA guidelines have lower the rosters for collegiate swimming and diving packages
throughout the nation, so competitors is now particularly eager for swimmers and divers
popping out of highschool. Keep an eye fixed on USC’s program because it swims with the sharks
within the extremely aggressive SEC and maintain an eye fixed out for Sophie Verzyl as she competes
to make the U.S. Olympic crew in 2028.

That’s all for this episode. On the subsequent Remembering the Days, Evan Faulkenbury uncovers the historical past of USC’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest
and most prestigious honor society within the United States. It’s a narrative that features
a little bit of historic intrigue when an Ivy League school blocked Carolina’s preliminary
bid for membership.

That’s subsequent on Remembering the Days.