The Duke Blue Devils are getting an early jump on forming their recruiting class of 2016. After receiving verbal commitments from Chris Murphy to the men’s side and Kylie Jordan and Suzanne Dolan for the women’s team, head coach Dan Colella and his team have pulled in another top-level swimmer: Miles Williams from Hong Kong.
“I chose Duke because I wanted to be part of a great sports tradition representing Duke University, join a terrific swim team and receive a world class education. I look forward to meeting and working with my new teammates and coaches.”
Williams holds a dual-citizenship and attends the West Island School in Hong Kong. He trains with the club team Harry Wright International where his best events are freestyle and IM. In early July, Williams broke an 11-year-old Hong Kong record in the 1500m free at the Hong Kong Amateur Swimming Association (HKASA) Division 1 Meet. Below are his best events in meters, converted to yards for comparison’s sake:
| Event | Meters | SC Yards |
| 100 LCM Free | 51.80 | 45.22 |
| 200 SCM Free | 1:51.37 | 1:40.79 |
| 400 SCM Free | 3:56.00 | 4:30.95 |
| 1500 SCM Free | 15:35.78 | 15:41.24 |
| 400 SCM IM | 4:27.75 | 4:02.31 |
All of Williams’ converted times would have been top-5 performances for the Blue Devils last season. And while his current PBs would have been just outside scoring position at the 2015 ACC Championships, Williams is not far off in the longer events.
Duke has been beefing up their distance freestyle roster over the last few years, and Williams will benefit from being able to train with a young and improving group in Durham. All Duke’s milers, and three of their four entrants in the 500 free at 2015 ACCs were freshmen (i.e., Matt Johnson, Alex Pena, and Marco Hosfeld).
Duke has very decent merit based scholarships available via the endowment fund. Even as a non-funded men’s or partially funded women’s team they can recruit like an Ivy. Terrific academic school in a desirable location and strong conference. Princeton used to have highly ranked men’s teams. It is possible for them to be competitive in the ACC. Difficult, but possible.
Competitive in the women’s ACC Championships I would expect with a funded program, particularly if fully funded.
Not a chance with the men’s program given zero funding unless I am mistaken.
I believe you’re correct, the men’s program is (currently) without scholarships. With that in mind, however, it seems they’re putting together a very respectable team. While they’re not going to be walking away with conference championships, I definitely see them as closing the gap and eventually perhaps surpassing the likes of Georgia Tech and Virginia.
Duke seems to be building a really solid program! With their combination of good recruiting and (from an outsider’s observations) successful coaching, I’d look for them to be a greater and greater force at ACCs in the coming years.
Congrats to the kid. Duke is getting some nice recruits in and building a program.
Those are about right conversions from SCM to SCY. You might be thinking LCM times would convert better
SWIM– these are SCM to SCY.
I really have no idea how you are converting these times. There’s no way on god’s green earth that 1:51 is almost as slow as 1:41 and 3:56.00 is a 4:30 and a 4:27 is a 4:02. Those are at LEAST a 1:37.5, 4:24.00 and 3:53. This seems to happen a lot with these articles.