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San Diego, California’s Julien Rousseau has announced his verbal commitment to the University of California, Berkeley for the 2025-26 school year.
“I’m super excited to announce my verbal commitment to continue my academic and athletic career at the University of California, Berkeley! I’d like to thank Coach Durden, Coach Marsh, and the entire Cal staff for this incredible opportunity. Much gratitude also goes out to my family, friends, and coaches for their many years of support. Go Bears!! 💙🐻💛”
Rousseau swims club with Pacific Swim. He specializes in distance freestyle and we ranked him in the “Honorable Mention” section of our Way Too Early list of top boys recruits from the high school class of 2025.
A junior at Del Norte High School, he won the 200 free (1:39.26) and 500 free (4:28.15) at the CIF-San Deigo Section Division 1 Championships last season as a sophomore. He also swam a leg (21.70) on the winning 200 free relay and anchored the 7th-place 400 free relay (47.42).
He had a big meet at Carlsbad Sectionals last spring, where he won the mile (15:12.74), was runner-up in the 1000 free (9:06.62), and came in 4th in the 500 free (4:24.90). He also finished 21st in the 400 IM and 22nd in the 200 free. He earned PBs in the 500/1000/1650 free.
Rousseau had a strong long course season, culminating in PBs of 1:54.67/3:59.66/8:17.65 in the 200/400/800 free at Summer Junior Nationals. His best 1500 time dates from the same meet in 2022 (15:59.52).
Rousseau competed in the 200/500/1650 free and 400 IM at Winter Juniors West. He earned a PB in the 100 fly leading off the 400 IM. A week later he swam at San Diego Imperial LSC’s Winter Age Group Championships and picked up new PBs in the 50/100 free, 200 breast, 200 fly, and 400 IM.
Best SCY times:
- 200 free – 1:39.26
- 500 free – 4:24.90
- 1000 free – 9:06.62
- 1650 free – 15:12.74
- 400 IM – 3:53.70
Rousseau will suit up for the Golden Bears with fellow class of 2029 commits Norvin Clontz, Caiden Bowers, Kenneth Barnicle, Ian Platts-Mills, Andrew Shackell, and Dar Lavrenko.
If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected].
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Distance freers historically don’t do very well at Cal hence why they recruit international mid season additions to supplement Durden’s incompetence when coaching distance
Notable exceptions: Jeremy Bagshaw, Nick Norman. Sean Grieshop was pretty solid as well. The Hinshaw brothers not too shabby.
They don’t really develop good middle distance/distance swimmers. The ones that are top level do okay but the rest usually disappear. Would love to see them develop a 4:24 guy into a 4:10 guy.
Gabriel Jett: 4:22 in HS —> 4:09 last year
Trenton Julian: 4:28 in HS —> 4:09 senior year
???
I swear y’all just talk to talk
Now do non 1.00 power index guys outside the top 20 recruits.
Trenton Julian: no safesport in HS ——-> Safesport list by end of senior year
Bjorn Seeliger: choking every single race in finals ——-> still choking every race in finals
Reece Whitley: peaked when he was 15 ——-> dropped a tenth in 1 breast at Cal
Hugo Gonzalez: needed 13 years of eligibility, 3 different teams just to win one roided up individual title and had to be begged to come back (btw, he was a 2 time olympian BEFORE his junior year at Cal)
such an unlikeable mickey mouse team