Cole Earns All-America Honors

At last weekend’s NCAA swimming championships at the Univeristy of Georgia, Harvard finished in 17th place, finishing ahead of tradtional national powers Wisconsin and SMU while turning in its best performance since 1998.

Harvard’s top 20 finish is even more impressive considering that the Crimson only brought two competitors to NCAAs this year—sophomore John Cole and junior Dan Shevchik. Between the two Ivy phenoms, Harvard was able to amass more points than teams with two, three, or four times as many entrants.

“This is a fantastic accomplishment for us,” Cole said. “Beating teams that had relay competitors like Wisconsin and SMU was really amazing.”

All it took was outstanding All-American efforts by Cole, who finished second in the 1650-yard freestyle and third in the 500 free, and strong showings by Shevchik, who took home Honorable Mention All-American honors for his top-15 finishes in both the 200 backstroke and the 400 individual medley.

Despite his substantive contributions, Shevchik—a former All-American and bronze medal winner at the 1999 Pan American Games—knew what the real story was from the tournament.

“This weekend has been all about John Cole,” Shevchik said. “He swam unbelievably.”

Cole, a native of Harrington Park, N.J. who modestly hoped to finish in the top eight in both of his events, far exceeded his expectations and apparently those of everyone else at the meet.

Moments after posting a new Harvard record of 14:39.71 in the 1650 free—a full ten seconds better than his previous school mark—and finishing two seconds behind Olympic silver medalist Erik Vendt, one of the race timers approached him and told him that he was “from Harvard and not supposed to do that.”

Cole could only smile and thank the official for his odd compliment.

“I thought it was a little ignorant for someone to assume that just because you’re from Harvard you can’t do anything but study,” Cole said. “I guess I showed some people that going to class isn’t the only thing that Harvard people can do.”

In his final heat of the 1650 free, Cole was placed in the sixth lane, between Klete Keller of USC and Brendan Neligan of Michigan. Cole was also able to see Georgia’s Robert Margalis in Lane 1 and Vendt in Lane 4. Cole credits the strong competition in the final heat with propelling him to a faster time.

“It was definitely very helpful to have some good competitors in my heat,” Cole said. “Klete and Brendan pushed me to a faster pace [at the beginning of the race] and I tried to catch Vendt the rest of the way.”

Cole’s split times from the race show that he narrowed the gap with Vendt and pulled away from the field considerably after the 11th lap. He finished only 2.23 seconds behind Vendt while outpacing third-place Justin Mortimer by nearly 11 seconds.

In addition to his sensational race in the 1650 free, Cole also turned heads with his third-place finish in the 500 on Thursday. His time of 4:16.91 was only four seconds behind the eventual winner (Keller) and three seconds faster better than his previous personal best.

For the weekend, Cole earned All-American honors for the second straight year in both events.

Shevchik, who garnered Honorable Mention All-American recognition in each of his events, finished 11th in the 400 IM with a Harvard record of 3:46.17 and 14th in the 200 backstroke with a time of 1:44.78.

Harvard’s high finish at NCAAs also carried a bit of redemption for the Crimson. After narrowly losing to Princeton in its attempt for a seventh-straight EISL title, the Crimson blew away the Tigers at NCAAs by racking up 42 points compared to Princeton’s 2.

“We joked about beating Princeton at NCAAs after we lost EISLs,” Shevchik said. “Hopefully, our performance this weekend will serve as a wake-up call for next season.”

Cole agreed with Shevchik’s assessment and added that he hoped the strong showing at nationals would translate into stronger recruiting classes in the future.

“Part of the reason I came to Harvard was because of its strong balance of academics and athletics,” Cole said. “[After this weekend], I hope kids in high school will start to look at Harvard as more and more of a possibility for sports as well as for school.”