Male Practice Swimmers Help Rutgers Women’s Swimming and Diving Team Reach New Heights

This season, Rutgers Women’s Swimming and Diving added two male practice swimmers to its staff to help the swimmers prepare to compete against swimmers with physical advantages. This strategy is often used by college Women’s Basketball teams, most notably South Carolina, to simulate competing against bigger, faster, and stronger competition. According to Kevin Perrington-Turner of the Asbury Park Press and head coach Jon Maccoll, the same concept is being employed for Rutgers Women’s Swimming and Diving this season.

According to Maccoll, the team often has to compete against women swimmers who are six feet tall and have physical advantages over their own swimmers. Having male practice counterparts allows them to compete against swimmers with those same physical advantages in practice, which allows them to prepare better before they face those types of swimmers during their meets.

With the new male practice swimmers on staff and the very talented team that they assist, the team has seen an uptick in recruiting and has been recruiting its fastest swimming times in three or four years, according to Maccoll. He also mentioned how the fact that they practice against male swimmers has been one of the catalysts for them to have conversations with highly rated recruits who otherwise would not have considered them if they did not have male swimmers.

“The biggest thing I would say is that men have had an impact is now a whole group of women, multiple four- and five-star recruits that we’ve been on the phone with have said that they would not even be on the phone with us if we didn’t have the men to train with. That’s been huge.”

He also talked about how he hopes the fact that they have male practice swimmers now helps them convince New Jersey talent to stay home.

“It’s really difficult to keep Jersey kids in state because they all want to go south,” Maccoll said.

Maccoll anticipates that they will add more male practice swimmers in the near future.

“I definitely think the men are going to expand on the practice squad,” Maccoll said. “We run four training groups, and the goal is to get two to three guys in every training group.

While he praised the men for their contributions to the team, he also pointed out how they aren’t the only reason why the team has been performing this season.

“This is probably the most talented team I’ve had since I’ve been to Rutgers, and next year we’re even more talented. We have a pretty stellar recruiting class coming in next year. ”

One of the male assistants swam for his high school team in the Jersey Shore area, as Allen Zhao, who is originally from China, came to the Jersey Shore for his high school years and swam at Ranney School in Tinton Falls. While he was there, he collected three medals at the 2023 Shore Conference Championships. Zhao does not receive a scholarship for his efforts, but receives other student perks.

According to the article by Perrington-Turner, Zhao’s day includes practicing with the team in the early morning before heading to class, and then going back to the pool for afternoon practices.

Recently, Rutgers took home first place at the Minnesota invitational, adding seven new times to the school’s all-time top 10 time lists in the process. The new top-10 times are spread across many different events, including the platform diving competition, where Sephora Ford recorded the second fastest time in school history.