Alex Shackell, Drew Kibler and Rajeev Ram, all Carmel High School alumni, won silver medals in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
One of the best up-and-coming swimmers in the country earned her first Olympic medal on Thursday night.
Alex Shackell, a 17-year-old incoming senior at Carmel High School (Ind.), was part of the United States’ silver-winning 4×200 swim team with Katie Ledecky. Shackell swam in the preliminaries but not the championship round, in which the U.S. finished in 7:40.86.
Schackell also raced the 200-meter butterfly earlier Thursday, finishing sixth. According to IndyStar, she was the youngest finalist.
She is the second girl in Indiana state history to win an Olympic medal while still in high school.
The Carmel High School contingency in this Olympics performed extremely well, with three of the four Olympians from this 106,000-person city medaling. Inside the city, dozens of people gathered in the public plaza despite poor weather and weekday afternoon events to watch their athletes compete on the giant television screen installed.
Photo: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports
Drew Kibler, a 2018 graduate of Carmel competing in his second Olympic Games, won silver in the 4×200 freestyle relay. The group finished with a time of 7:00.98, securing the first Olympic medal for Kibler.
On Saturday, 1990 Carmel graduate Rajeev Ram became the oldest Olympic tennis medalist in 116 years, according to the IndyStar, when he and Austin Krajicek reached the doubles championship round but fell to the Australian team in three close sets 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (7-1), 10-8. It’s Ram’s second silver medal after winning his first with Venus Williams in the 2016 Rio mixed doubles.
Photo: Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports.
In addition, 2023 Carmel graduate Aaron Shackell finished eighth in the 400 freestyle.
“The fact that we can all celebrate their accomplishments together is amazing,” Carmel Mayor Sue Finkam said. “In this time, where division in this presidential election year is a little more in the forefront, I love the fact that we can celebrate something that we can all come together on.”
Swim club and high school team coach Chris Plumb was among the USA Team coaches in Paris, another nod to the prowess of Carmel swimming, one that has proven the monicker of SwimCity, USA coined by Finkam.
“He’s a fantastic person and an even better coach,” Finkam said about Plumb.“I can’t help but think it’s going to do nothing but grow our swimming program even bigger than it alwraedy is. Our Carmel Swim club and Carmel Swim academy in particular have said they’ve had unprecedented interest in their program.”
Aaron and Alex Shackell, Drew Kibler, and Rajeev Ram are representing Carmel, Indiana in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Carmel, Indiana, the 106,000-person city that calls itself SwimCity, is living up to the name coined by Mayor Sue Finkam: It is the only city with three hometown swimmers competing in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, according to SwimSwam, using USA Swimming parameters.
Drew Kibler, who competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, returns to the Games to swim in the 4×200 freestyle relay freestyle relay. The Carmel High School and University of Texas alumnus competed in the same event in Tokyo.
Siblings Aaron and Alex Shackell join him in Paris. Aaron, a 19-year-old rising sophomore who will attend the Texas next year, won the 400-meter freestyle at the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials to qualify for the Games. He finished eighth in the final on Saturday night and is waiting to hear whether he’ll swim in the prelims of the 4×200 freestyle relay, according to the IndyStar.
Alex is a rising senior at Carmel High School. Though she’s just 17, she already has international experience, having won silver alongside Katie Ledecky in the 2023 World Aquatics Championships.
In the Olympics, she’ll compete in the 200-meter butterfly and the 4×200-meter freestyle relay.
Carmel swim coach Chris Plumb is a coach of the U.S. Olympic team, in Paris with his longtime students.
They’re not the only athletes to represent both the U.S. and their hometown. Men’s doubles tennis player Rajeev Ram graduated from Carmel High School and will be in Paris for his second Olympic Games. He won silver alongside Venus Williams in the 2016 Rio mixed doubles.
Photo courtesy of Rob DeRocker
The city of Carmel is electrified, ready for their athletes to compete. The city temporarily renamed streets after each representative, including Plumb. In the midtown area, a big screen was installed into a plaza to allow community viewings of the events while free activities take place around. SunKing Brewery released SwimCity pint glasses.
It’s a celebration in Carmel as their athletes are set to compete for gold and glory.
Monikered SwimCity, USA, the 106,000-person city of Carmel, Indiana has 14 swimmers competing in the Olympic qualifiers this week.
Welcome to Carmel, Indiana, AKA SwimCity, USA, where more swimmers will compete in the 2024 Paris Olympic Qualifiers over the next week than there are traffic lights on the roads.
The 50-square-mile, 106,000-person city is home to 14 swimmers who are taking part in 46 events in the trials from June 15-23 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Seven athletes are high schoolers, one of whom just finished eighth grade and another just graduated. The girls high school team has won 38 state championships in a row — a national record for any sport in any state — and the boys have won 13 of the last 15, with head coach Chris Plumb overseeing both teams for 18 of those years.
The tradition, history and dominance of this sport in Carmel is what is allowing a full percentage point of the 1,000 swimmers competing in the qualifiers to be from this relatively small midwest city that Mayor Sue Finkam has led the rebranded moniker of SwimCity, USA.
“Mayors really have two opportunities: That’s to convene people around important conversations and to promote the community. This does both,” she said. “It convenes us around a topic of excellence and swinging for the fences, which Carmel has done a lot of and been successful at, and also allows us to promote the heck out of an incredible community.”
Convening the community around Carmel High School
The swimming community of Carmel is funneled through neighborhood meets and the Carmel Swim Club, which has nearly 500 athletes on the competitive team and another 1,700 on the noncompetitive arm, the Carmel Swim Academy, up to Carmel High School, the only high school in the city.
Around 2008, city leaders discussed opening a second high school. As populations grow, most communities do so to create a more manageable ecosystem for thousands of teenage learners.
Carmel decided not to, and that has made all the difference for the city.
“Carmel made a decision really for the arts to have all this money pooled into one high school … which allows us to have the facilities and to support the athletics,” said Plumb.
With a student population of 5,300, Carmel High School has a TV and radio station, an automotive shop that is actively under expansion, clubs including robotics, jewelry, engineering, and a construction club that teaches students how to build tiny homes.
“They have incredible resources there for kids who are college-bound or trade-bound, and the realization was if they had two high schools, they’d have to choose who gets [which club],” Finkam said.
The city has been known for unique action plans in the past, most notably the decision to transition away from traffic lights to roundabouts. In 2023, the Wall Street Journal highlighted how former mayor Jim Brainard, who served seven straight terms, led the updating of zoning codes and tax increment financing to build mixed-use developments, the city center, walkable trails, and a network of more than 150 roundabouts to help ease traffic, decrease car accidents, and lower carbon emissions.
Photo courtesy of Carmel
Today, there are only 10 intersections under the city’s jurisdiction with traffic lights, four of which will be converted into roundabouts in 2025.
“We had stable leaders on city council, we didn’t have a lot of turnover, so we had a buy-in to the vision that lasted for a couple of decades,” said Finkam, who served on the city council for 10 years.
The city’s brand celebrates what makes the area distinct with community support and quick, decisive action from the local government, leveraging unique opportunities like the upcoming trials.
2024 Olympic Qualifiers
The people of the city take pride in their swimmers. After the 30th championship, the national record, Carmel hosted a parade for the high school swimmers. In the town square, there’s a television on which trials from the past have been aired. The city celebrated a send-off for the group of qualifier competitors in May with another parade before the swimmers left to train.
“The people of the community understand how unique that success is,” Plumb said.
The athletes competing in the qualifiers and their events are as follows:
Since 1988, there have only been two years without any swimming competitors from Carmel. Over that time, there were 51 different swimmers, and in 2012, there was a record 17 for the city. In 2021, Carmel had two swimmers qualify for the Olympics for the first time in the city’s swimming history.
“One of the things that everyone always asks me — ‘How come we don’t have more Olympians from Carmel, we have this rich swimming history?'” Plumb said. “There are more starting NFL QBs than there will be men on the swim team — every four years. It is extremely hard to have an Olympian.”
There’s promise for this 2024 group to build upon the legacy. On Saturday, University of Texas swimmer Aaron Shackell qualified for the Olympics after winning the 400-meter freestyle. Drew Kibler and Jake Mitchell, the 2021 Olympians, are back in the trial, and half the competitors are high schoolers with dominant track records.
Lynsey Bowen, committed to Florida as a member of the class of 2025, won two state championships this season in the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyles — repeating her 2023 title in both.
Ellie Clarke is just 14, yet with wins in the Indiana SC Championships, Indiana CSC Winter Invitational, Speedo Junior National Championships, and more, she has proven she is qualified to compete against athletes a decade her senior. Clarke was a finalist in four events at the Speedo Sectionals, finishing second in the 200-meter backstroke.
Kayla Han was the youngest qualifier in 2021 when she was just 13, but she now has another three years of experience and represented the United States in the 2024 World Championships. She won four freestyle events at the Speedo Sectionals in March, setting records in two of them, and set three freestyle records in a dominant Speedo Winter Junior Championship East performance in December.
Gregg Enoch just graduated and, after winning the state championship in the 500-yard freestyle this year, is set to attend Louisville. He finished second in a pair of state championship events as a junior and set a record in his 500-yard freestyle victory at the Speedo Winter Junior Championship East as a senior.
Molly Sweeney has won four state championships over the last two school years, going back-to-back in the 200-yard individual medley and 100-yard breaststroke. She also set a record in the 200-yard breaststroke in the Speedo Winter Junior Championship East. She and Han are tied as the No. 2-ranked swimmer in the Swimcloud’s class of 2026 rankings.
Twins Alex and Andrew Shackell plan to carry on the family swimming legacy, with elder Aaron already qualifying. Andrew, ranked as the No. 2 boys swimmer in Indiana, placed third in both the 50– and 100-yard freestyles in the state championships this season after winning both events in the sectionals.
Alex’s Swimcloud page is littered with first-place finishes and Indiana records, having set state records in the 100- and 200-meter fly in March at the Speedo Sections, winning four state championships between the last two seasons, and dominating the Speedo Winter Junior Championships. In the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, she won silver alongside Katie Ledecky.
Plumb told a story about the World Aquatics team, where each player received a poker chip from the U.S. team coach to represent going “all-in” in this tournament. “Katie Ledecky gave hers to Alex right before they swam on the relay together,” Plumb said.
Entering the Olympic qualifiers, athletes will swim alongside elite athletes who demonstrate “what excellence really looks like, the amount time and commitment and, to me, the level of focus that it takes,” Plumb said.
They’re doing it together, as a unit that has swam alongside each other for the majority of their lives.
“The support they have for each other is just unbelievable … They know that they need each other,” Plumb said. “That, to me, is the best part: the camaraderie and the willingness to do more for their teammates, and the amount of support it takes to be on this level.”
Gabi Brito broke two records over Memorial Day weekend, one of which was a 42-year old record held by 12-time Olympic medalist Dara Torres.
Records are made to be broken— but some of them take longer to break than others.
On Friday, 13-year-old swimmer Gabi Brito broke a pair of age-specific records in the 50-meter freestyle, one of which was held by a 12-time Olympic medalist.
In the prelims, Brito became the first swimmer in Southern California Swimming LSC at her age to break the 26-second mark in the event. The fastest swim of the 50-meter freestyle had been held for over 40 years, set by Dara Torres in 1982. Brito’s time of 25.97 was .07 seconds faster than the legend’s.
Brito officially became the fastest 13-year-old later in the day when she placed third in the Speedo Grand Challenge. She broke the 13U record with a 25.71-second race, finishing third to only USC graduate Caroline Famous (25.58) and seven-time Olympic medalist Simone Manuel (24.69), according to SwimSwam.
Her time breaks the record of Kate Douglass, who established the mark for 13-year-olds at 25.80 in 2015. According to the outlet,Brito’s time is only .02 seconds shy of the U.S. Olympic Trials cut.
Brito also raced in the 100 fly, 200 back and 100 freestyle over the weekend, according to SwimSwam. Her older sister, Bella Brito, is committed to USC as a member of the high school class of 2025.
Gabi Brito still has time before selecting a college — let her get to high school first! — but with her astonishing run, she has already etched her name in the record books.
These 24 standouts will be honored as nominees for national Softball Player of the Year. The winner and three finalists will be revealed on July 31 during an on-demand broadcast. This year will feature top athletes in 29 boys and girls sports awards categories as well as special honors like Special Olympics Athlete of the Year, Rising Star and Play of the Year.
All national nominees must register to provide show information and receive important updates regarding the show. To register, click on the “REGISTER” button on the event website.
With variance in NIL rules state-by-state, Eccker Sports launched a platform to provide information and resources to recruits, families and coaches.
Regardless of stance on whether college athletes should be allowed to profit off name, image and likeness, one facet of the NIL debate is largely agreed upon from both sides: There’s uncertainty in the rules that govern athletes’ allowances, rules that lack structure and vary for high school recruits from state to state.
As it currently stands across the country, there’s widespread variability, with seven states permitting athletes to profit off their name and likeness, 17 states considering changing bylaws and 26 states prohibiting it. The inconsistency adds extra difficulties in recruiting because athletes must know how signing a deal that guarantees college money could affect their high school eligibility.
In Texas, for instance, NIL deals are not allowed for high school athletes. And that restriction — and potentially its lack of clarity in Texas — played a role in the No. 1 football recruit in the class of 2022, Quinn Ewers, skipping his senior year of high school in favor of enrolling at Ohio State early and signing an NIL deal reportedly worth $1.4 million.
“I do think that there’s going to be some lawmakers at some point that are probably talking about it, but it’s going to take years,” said Vandegrift (Texas) High School head coach Drew Sanders. “…Parents want to make sure that they’re not doing anything that would get them in trouble eligibility-wise … This is all brand-new for everybody, so I have really zero experience with this. As a coach, I’m not really sure where to steer them to.”
Uncertainty in the immediate wake of sports legislation is nothing new, whether league-specific like the NFL’s concussion protocol or broad, widespread changes like Title IX.
Ten months since the passage of the NIL policy, the aftermath perhaps most closely mirrors that of the NCAA’s mid-1980s adoption of Prop 48, which mandated a minimum for high school grades and college entrance exams scores. Today, it’s a standard model. But when it was passed, it was controversial.
“It threw the entire market into a tailspin because it really changed the way the NCAA ruled on eligibility,” said Randy Eccker, a longtime figure in the sports digital media and technology landscape. “It completely changed the dynamic, but nobody took the time to go in and educate the high school market on what it meant to them and how to do it.”
While the implementation of Prop 48 lacked the resources for affected athletes, Eccker hopes to lead the charge in this next wave of sports ecosystem education. His platform Eccker Sports announced on Monday the launch of an educational services platform that will target high school students, coaches, teachers and administrators with resources including video curriculum, state-by-state information, tools for coaches to educate their communities and a network of legal, financial and tax experts.
The website is the exclusive high school partner of Game Plan, a platform with partnerships at the collegiate and professional level that provides learning resources, career planning and other developmental programs to athletes.
Pricing for the Eccker Sports resource hub varies state to state, Eccker said.
“Fast-forward even 10 years and this will be a normal part of the athletic landscape and the athletic education landscape, but today, when we’ve gone in and talked to coaches and administrators at the high school level, there’s a lot of fear and trepidation because it’s so new,” Eccker said.
The need for education on NIL is more expansive than finding a deal without affecting high school eligibility. Chuck Schmidt, Vice President and Executive Director of High School for Playfly Sports and the former COO of the Arizona Interscholastic Association, said that high schoolers whose parents’ jobs take them to different states might be unexpectedly affected. Tax obligations must be outlined for athletes. Athletes and families who see a chance for an influx of money but don’t know the laws could be exploited, whether by signing with someone who isn’t qualified, agreeing to have large percentages of money taken by the agent, or accidentally signing a deal to grant likeness to a brand in perpetuity without realizing the long-term implications.
Athletes’ rights took an enormous step forward with the passage of NIL allowances. Still, the lack of structure at a national level is creating confusion and potential long-term, unforeseen consequences. Eccker and Tim Prukop, the Chief Commercial Officer of the Eccker Sports resource hub, hope the new platform can help athletes and families build effective NIL strategies.
“NIL is just thrown around how great it is for kids to be able to do that, but there’s always something else that starts developing after decisions are made,” Schmidt said. “It’s an environment where every state has its own traditions, law, state law and that culture. Education … is going to be very critical to the success of what’s about to come.”
High school girls swimmers interested in competing at the next level should check out this breakdown from NCSA.
Jeff is a former college swimmer and coach at an NCAA DIII program. Jeff is just one of many former college and professional athletes and coaches who are part of the Next College Student Athlete team. NCSA’s history of digital innovation and long-standing relationship with the college coaching community has made it the largest and most successful collegiate athletic recruiting network in the country.
Which women’s college swimming program is right for you? With a total of 627 women’s swimming programs across the three NCAA divisions, the NAIA and the NJCAA and CCCAA, this isn’t an easy question to answer. It’s also just one of many questions you’ll find yourself asking during the college recruiting process.
The NCAA established a new set of recruiting rules for the 2019-2020 season that may change a decade-long trend of later recruiting in college swimming. Rather than waiting until senior year, college coaches believe that student-athletes will begin committing to programs as juniors, now that communication between coaches and athletes is permitted beginning June 15 after the athlete’s sophomore year. Earlier commitments mean that student-athletes and their families need to prepare for recruiting, as scholarship money will diminish earlier in the process.
Do you have what it takes to swim for an NCAA women’s swimming program? NCSA’s team of swimming experts created a guide to college swimming recruiting times based on qualifying times for major swim meets and a strong understanding of college coaches’ expectations at each division levels. For example, most elite Division I women’s swimming recruits can swim the 100 Freestyle in 47.3 seconds, compared to swimmers at the Division II and Division III levels who clock in between 49.9 and 50.9 seconds.
June 15 after your sophomore year may be when college coaches can begin contacting you, but your college recruiting process starts long before this date. Below is a list of steps all student-athletes and their families should take leading up to June 15:
Researching swimming programs: Women’s college swimming programs are offered at more than 550 four-year colleges and universities. Your first step in the recruiting process is to research these programs to build a list of prospective schools. Here is a comprehensive list of colleges with women’s swimming.
Build a recruiting profile: To increase your visibility and exposure to college coaches, create a strong recruiting profile that coaches can reference to evaluate your swim times and academic stats. Create a free NCSA recruiting profile.
Create a highlight video: College coaches aren’t there to evaluate your technique at swim practice and they won’t always be at competitions where you swim a best time. Luckily, you can capture your technique and performance at swim meets in a highlight video for college coaches to review. Learn how to make a highlight video.
Attend swim camps: Competitive swim camps are a great way for you to improve your reaction time off the block, stroke technique, transitions and race finish. When hosted by a college swim program, these camps also serve as an opportunity for you to explore campus and the facilities. Find a swim camp near you.
Contacting college coaches: You won’t hear from college coaches interested in recruiting you until after June 15 of your sophomore year, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t reach out to express interest in a college swimming program. This is your guide to writing a recruiting letter.
How to Get a Swimming Scholarship
Women’s college swimming is extremely competitive, so you’ll need to be proactive when pursuing an athletic scholarship. While the NCAA sets a limit on how many full-ride equivalent scholarships each team can award, not every college swimming program has a fully funded scholarship budget. Whether a college coach is awarding a full ride or partial scholarship funding, they prioritize student-athletes who have the potential to score the team the most points during dual meets and the end-of-season conference meet. Do your research and talk to college coaches to determine what scholarship opportunities are available at your prospective schools.
If you’re not ready for a four-year college just yet, the NJCAA and CCCAA institutions offer women’s swimming programs and scholarships. After two years, you can transfer to an NCAA or NAIA school and try for a scholarship package.
Each year, NCSA releases Power Rankings that list the top NCAA and NAIA schools that offer women’s swimming. This report analyzes various factors that student-athletes and their families consider when selecting the right college fit, including cost, size, location and academics. View a fill list of colleges offering women’s swim teams
