After winning the 100 breaststroke on Saturday at the 2015 DC Metro Champs in 53.22, Carsten Vissering spoke with SwimSwam’s Matt Rees about his plans with USC coming up. The biggest news coming out of this interview is that he will defer his first semester at USC to acclimate to his new environment.
We’ve seen this become very common for the Trojans in the last few years, as they’ve had several swimmers skip the fall semester of the NCAA season. Names that come to mind recently include Cristian Quintero, Vlad Morozov, and Dylan Carter.
While Vissering says that his motivation for deferring is to acclimate to the environment for a semester before having to take on both the rigors of NCAA sports and USC academics, an added bonus for the Trojans are certain scholarship-limit-benefits that come with swimmers sitting out the fall semester.
Vissering is the #4-ranked swimmer in the high school class of 2015 and will swim on this summer’s World University Games team.
Some international students graduate high school in November/December and start college in the USA in January–2nd semester. Is that a crime?
Yes, it is. Ron Burgundy still thinks the Germans discovered San Diego and I suppose some still think a semester of training in an Olympic year is a very bad idea.
OLYMPIC YEAR!!??
Fall college sport athletes show up with no grades baseline and play football, soccer, etc. I see the point as applied to swimming, but we are not in a vacuum here. NCAA has ongoing eligibility requirements, but none are in force for a first semester athlete unless he is plainly not enrolled in classes or drops them below the minimum course load requirement.
It is a simple question. Why do some NCAA athletes have to get up every day at 5:30 and manage a rigorous training schedule (doubles, dry lands, lifting) AND a rigorous academic schedule (12 credits, classes, homework, exams, GPA minimum) while another athlete is given the option to just swim the first semester with none of the academic or time pressures. Both athletes show up at the same championship meet in March. Who has the advantage? Again, my point is that for sports that span two semesters the requirements to compete should be equal and when someone tries to just show up in the second semester to compete and score points then the NCAA needs to say “Not allowed.” Double… Read more »
One could look at this situation as actually being a disadvantage to him. By the time second semester rolls around, he is just beginning to experience the stresses (academic combined with athletic) of being a first year college student. Right at the time he is trying to gear up for championship season. I would think it easier if he gets acclimated right from the start of the academic year. That way, when second semester begins, he’s already been through all that. Less stress/better acclimated than if he waited. Again, all of us (me included) are speculating why this is being done.
I hope someone can help me here. What I am having a hard time understanding is how swimmers who attend their respective schools first semester in a given year are required to take a minimum of credits AND have a certain GPA in order to be academically eligible to swim their second semester. How is it that swimmers can just show up second semester with no grades to evaluate from the previous semester and be allowed to swim in both conference and NCAA championships? There is a double standard here and these second semester only swimmers are getting a free pass because no grades from the second semester will be available to assess prior to the big meets and for… Read more »
strkswim – the same way that a freshman can show up their first semester with no grades to evaluate.
Sure. I get that. But the freshman shows up in September, gets the work done, or doesn’t. If he doesn’t he can’t compete second semester. Black and white. This is the NCAA right? National COLLEGIATE Athletic Association. Again, if a sport spans two semesters then it does not seem equitable that an academic standard is required for those who swim the first half of the season and not for those who show up only for the second and most important half. Furthermore, this sitting out nonsense should not be allowed for swimmers who have already swum multiple seasons like the dude from USC whose senior year eligibility was already called into question.
Depends on what you mean by getting the job done. Based on personal experience here in my younger college days, I competed second semester of college while on academic probation. It wasn’t until after 2 semesters that I was ineligible to compete.
I plainly do not understand the specious nature of some comments here. Taking a semester to train only isn’t a bad idea if an athlete: 1. Has Olympic aspirations, 2. Is going to a program that has a post grad group, 3. There are housing possibles including bunking up with a post grad for a semester, 4. Healing from an injury that requires a therapy time drain that would hurt academics, or 5. Simply want to train and take a baby step of a class or two at the parent’s expense to get used to college and college swimming demands taken together.
Those all seem to me choices, and nothing that imposes an unfairness onto others or is cheating… Read more »
1. Has Olympic aspirations
I’m not sure why this would affect him enrolling at USC the 1st or 2nd semester.
2. Is going to a program that has a post grad group.
Yes, he can train with the post grads, but college programs are supposed to separate their post grads and current college kids, but this does not really happen like you think it does. Because USC has such a large post grad group, it’s possible that there are actually two separate groups (college and post grad) that practice at 2 different times/pools, but it’s very likely that everyone trains together. I know that it happens with at least 1 other top tiered college team who also has… Read more »
I think this is a plan to spread college swimming, scholarship money and coursework tactically between two Olympic trial years to give Carsten a good shot at doing well at those events. I’m sure most 17/18 year-old guys would love to be able to just go out to LA and swim with a post-grad group like the Trojans and not worry about school for a semester.