Aaron Shackell has entered the transfer portal after spending the fall semester with Cal and then heading back home to Carmel, Indiana for an Olympic Redshirt in the spring semester.
Shackell was the #6 ranked recruit of last fall’s incoming freshman class and was expected to be a big boost to Cal’s butterfly and mid-distance freestyle group. At the Minnesota Invitational (Cal’s mid-season meet), Shackell swam a personal best time in the 200 butterfly with a 1:43.40. That was a personal best by 0.84 seconds. He also swam a 4:22.77 in the 500 free and a 1:36.76 in the 200 free.
It was originally announced that Shackell would take his redshirt while training with his club team, Carmel Swim Club, and that he would return to Cal this fall.
Entering the portal does not guarantee a transfer; rather it allows student-athletes the opportunity to discuss the possibility of transferring with other programs. On rare occasions, we have seen student-athletes enter the portal and ultimately decide to stay with their programs.
Since returning home during the winter break, Shackell swam numerous LCM best times at the end of March at Indianapolis Sectionals. His best times included a 49.46 in the 100 free and a 1:46.35 in the 200 free. His old best times were a 49.52 in the 100 and a 1:47.07 in the 200.
In June 2023, Shackell competed at US Summer Nationals. There he was highlighted by a 6th place finish in the 400 freestyle and a 9th place finish in the 200 butterfly. He also finished 13th in the 200 free and 25th in prelims of the 100 butterfly.
Shackell’s best SCY times are:
- 200 free: 1:32.85
- 500 free: 4:15.35
- 200 fly: 1:43.40
Shackell’s best SCY time in the 200 free would have earned him an NCAA invite this year as it took a 1:32.93 in the event to earn an individual invite. It took a 4:14.90 in the 500 free and a 1:42.10 in the 200 fly.
His younger sister Alex Shackell, a member of the 2023 US World Championship team and the #1 ranked recruit in the high school class of 2025, is verbally committed to Cal. Alex verbally committed in September 2023.
Very interesting. I think his two best events are the 200 Free and the 200 Fly if I’m not mistaken, and Cal just broke the NCAA record with 4 of the fastest 200 freestylers in the country and put 2 up in the 2fly. Not sure another school has better 2 free 2 fly performance record. I wonder if school was too hard for him at a school with the academic level Cal has. Or maybe he just didnt fit in with the team? My guess is that if he just stuck with the program at Cal he would have flourished. Maybe he just got spooked and bailed. For whatever reason he left I hope he does well. I hope… Read more »
Go Gators!
Putting money on him transferring to UVA. He’s @uvaswimdive account’s most recent follow and the “savage 7” campaign just picked back up to hint at another new recruit. If so it could be huge for the team and I’m not sure if Alexandra would reconsider her commitment if my prediction is correct but this could ripple into women’s swimming as well.
After Noah Nichols is the only reason UVA stayed in the top 20 this year at NCs, Shackell would be a fool to commit there
brae donkeeth lol
Brownstead got an A-final, too.
But, no, this is a 2025 recruit.
UF actually has a really good track record with kids from Carmel. Jake Mitchell most notably, but Sean Sullivan was nowhere near NCAAs coming in this year and he dropped 3 seconds in the 200 back and ended up missing the meet by about a half-second. He became a really well-rounded swimmer too, dropping from 1:37 to 1:34 in the 200 free, 1:47 to 1:43 in the 200 IM and 1:55 to 1:44 in the 200 fly. Lynsey Bowen (their best distance swimmer) is coming next year too.
Jake Mitchell has not swam well at Florida
His best time in the 200 free long course when he made the Olympic team was a 1:48.6. In his first summer of training at UF, he got that down to 1:47.2, and as of last summer, 1:45.8.
He’s improved in different areas, just not all around. Saying he hasn’t done well at UF is just objectively false, but specifically his 400m Free and 1650 have not improved. On the other hand an over 3 second drop in the 500 to sub 4:10 and a 2 second drop in the 200 are solid progress
Lynsey Bowen is not their best by any means now that Kayla Han is there
Please be nice Greggy. And come visit me!
Trained with Drew Kibler at Carmel before Drew headed down to ASU with Bowman. I could see him making the move to Austin as Kibler has already committed to swimming with Bob back in Austin with his pro group.
Cal is a dumpster fire. The empire has fallen. Goodbye Bears.
cook little bro
What???
Is this Andrew using a new name?
Yes, after getting second at NCAAs the empire has fallen. Absolutely. No question. If you can’t tell this is sarcasm you might need to do some reflecting.
Homie was there for how long?
barely found the closest grocery store before he went home for an olympic gap year.
Dare I say it might be academics? Cal is hard. I can’t see why he else would be transferring especially with the family ties to Durden and his siblings going there.
Yeah, Cal must be so hard that international dudes with minimal educational backgrounds can show up in February and supposedly do “school” (mickey mouse semester programs) while somehow remaining eligible
Go off queen
If his siblings are still going there. And Cal ain’t that hard, once you get in.
It’s one of the top public universities in the country?
Top university sometimes means it is hard to get in but not necessarily hard to get good grades
Yes, it is. So is Yale, one might argue. And the mean GPA for Yale 22-23 was 3.70. In 2022, Cal gave 64% of all grades as A’s or A-. These schools are difficult to get in, they are not that difficult to pass. A long known thing. Stanford, same way.
I would argue that it is not that difficult to pass at any university. Hence, there are very few swimmers who fail the GPA minimum threshold of 2.0. However, I would believe that most student-athletes who attend these well-respected academic institutions want to excel in both facets; so when I miss the ISL (Go Dawgs) says “Cal is hard” it’s because there is added academic competition making it more difficult to excel since the end goal is not to just pass, but to be successful.
You have to control for the student quality when looking at numbers just like that though – the average student at these types of schools had a 4.0 in high school with stacks of AP classes/tests, so of course the average student is going to do well too. Berkeley isn’t considered an academically rigorous school for no reason
I also don’t want to make any assumptions but there’s a reason for the stereotype that athletic recruits are sometimes not up to par academically compared to the non-hooked applicants
I’d be careful with that athletic/academic stereotype – I think if we’re going to stereotype, swimmers would be among the highest performing academically.
are there stats on that?
I went to one of “those” schools, and got an engineering degree. I’m not that smart. On reflection, I didn’t work that hard. I did fine. I can say the same of many of my teammates & classmates. The grade inflation is definitely a real thing.
that’s great as an anecdote, but “majoring in engineering at UC Berkeley is pretty hard” is not really a controversial statement. Idk whether Shackell even is in engineering, but in general its not at all a crazy idea that someone would want to drop the major or transfer schools because they found it too difficult
Not sure where you got these stats, but no way 64% students get As. Perhaps in psychology, business and other nonSTEM majors, but not engineering, math, physics, biology, chem etc. Unlike Stanford and Ivies, Cal is highly competitive and the bell curve is definitely present and applied in all the sciences and hard core classes. Also, you can’t drop classes late like at Stanford/Ivies when you don’t do well.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2023/uc-berkeley-grade-inflation/
Engineering is “more rigorous” with only about 53% of all grades being A’s.
That’s why so many Cal and Stanford grads never do anything after graduation. Yeah, right.
Connections, my man. And some of them are actually gifted. Just as with any school. But remember, it is not what you know but who you know.
As SwimmerGuy said, he was there for about 5 minutes. Not even long enough to write a paper or take an exam, so an academic reason seems unlikely. Isn’t it possible he was just homesick? Didn’t think he could buy into the style of training quickly enough in an Olympic year? Discovered he really just didn’t fit in on the team or didn’t like the vibe? Hated swimming outside in the cold? So many more likely reasons than academics.
was he not there the entire first semester? A lot of people find first semester of college to be the hardest semester
Cal is on quarters.
Wrong, it’s on semester.
Stanford is on quarters, Cal is on semesters.
Aaron was there through the fall semester. I don’t know his class schedule, but I suspect he took a test or wrote a paper.