Signing Day: The SwimSwam Index of Class of 2016 College Commitments

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year….” Nope, we’re not talking about the holiday season, although that’s pretty wonderful, too. We’re talking about the weeklong Early Signing Period that stretches, this year, from November 11 to November 18, 2015. Beginning today, athletes in many NCAA sports –among them swimming and diving– are invited to sign the National Letter of Intent (NLI), the agreement between the college and the prospective student-athlete whereby the institution promises an athletic scholarship and the athlete promises to attend the school.

Signing Day is a big deal for the student-athlete; it rewards him or her for years and years of hard work. It is also a big deal for the collegiate sport of swimming and diving, which is put on center stage all across the country with all the other sports offering NLIs to high school athletes.

At SwimSwam, we get just as excited about “our” athletes signing their NLIs as you do. We love to see how many different schools provide opportunities for swimmers and divers of all levels. As of 6:00 am on Signing Day (athletes are not allowed to sign NLIs before 7:00 am in their home time zones), we have written commitment articles on 692 student-athletes. And counting! Our articles, when viewed in aggregate, tell the story of swimming at the collegiate level in the United States. They tell where the athletes are coming from, where they’re going, where they’re needed, and whose footsteps they’re following.

We’ve written about some really big hitters (e.g., Maxime Rooney, Meghan Small, Michael Jensen, Beata Nelson, and Becca Mann) as well as swimmers joining brand-new programs (e.g., Indiana State, University of Sioux Falls). In the spreadsheet below, you can follow along by sorting by conference, by college, by state, by high school, by LSC… however you would like to view the trends. We’ll update this list as we continue to wrap up more recruits, so bookmark this page to keep track!