Backstroker Danny Tran of Irvine, California Gives Verbal Commitment to Harvard

Daniel (“Danny”) Tran of University High School in Irvine, California has made a verbal commitment to join the Harvard men’s swimming and diving class of 2019.*

Harvard tends to get an early start on Ivy League recruiting and it looks like they are putting together a balanced class. They’ve covered fly (Grant Goddard), distance free (Brennan Novak and Gavin Springer), IM/200 stroke (Justin Wu), and now backstroke with Tran.

Tran, who trains with AquaZot Swim Club, is a 2016 Olympic Trials qualifier in the 200m back. His short course time would have been an A-final swim at 2014 Ivy League Championships, and an NCAA “B” cut. Tran’s top times are:

200y back: 1:44.55            200m back: 2:02.04
100y back: 48.77               100m back: 58.11
200y IM: 1:48.99               200m IM: 2:09.23
400y IM: 3:56.88               400m IM: 4:30.86

Representing University at the 2014 CIF-Southern Section Division I Championships, Tran placed third in the 200 IM and fourth in the 100 back, and led off University’s D1 record-breaking medley relay.

In the summer championship meets, he won the “B” final in the 200 back at Juniors and made the 18-and-under final of the same event at Nationals.

Tran is the backstroke leg of AquaZot’s national age group record-holding boys 15-16 200y and 400y medley relays. The other swimmers include Tyler Lin (breast), Justin Hanson (fly), and Thomas Smith (free).

__________________________

*DISCLAIMER: Tran has not yet been officially accepted to Harvard. As is true with all Ivy League schools, Harvard’s Admissions Office will not send its acceptance letter until the beginning of December, along with those of all Early Action candidates. The procedure for a recruited athlete like Tran is for Admissions to review his transcript and SAT scores, “support (his) application for admissions in the fall,” issue a Likely Letter, then offer him acceptance into the class of 2019.