Eugene Tee Commits to UNC

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While their ACC rivals Virginia and Florida State have been racking up top-50 recruits (three combined), the North Carolina Tar Heels have been relatively quiet in their recruiting. They have had a few solid pickups, but now broke through with a top-50 recruit of their own: Eugene Tee from Southern California, who collegeswimming.com declares as the #35 swimmer in the class of 2013.

Tee is an Australian who lives and trains in Santa Monica with Team Santa Monica. He’s maintained his Aussie roots with several appearances for National youth teams in the last few years. That includes three medals at the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games (2 silver, 1 bronze) and an appearance at the 2012 Jr. Pan Pac Championships where he was 7th in both the 200 and 400 IM’s, though not in great times for him.

In yards, Tee is a star IM’er and distance swimmer, logical given Team Santa Monica’s reputation as one of the rising hotbeds in open water. He has been a 1:50.21 in the 200 yard IM and a 3:50.74 in the 400 IM. He’s probably the 3rd-best 400 IM’er in the class behind Max Williamson and fellow Southern Californian Young Tae Seo.

As a third event, Tee will likely go to the 200 backstroke, where he’s been a 1:49.6.

Depending on where Tee and Tar Heel coach Rich DeSelm decide to go with his career, North Carolina will have some history either way. They’ve had some of the best ACC results in the 400 IM in the last few seasons, with National Team’ers Thomas Luchsinger and Tyler Harris , the latter of whom took 3rd in the 400 IM at the 2011 World University Games.

If Tee decides to pursue open water swimming (he raced the 10km at Jr. Pan Pacs), we can’t forget that Chip Peterson was very recently one of the best open water swimmers in the world.

Tee’s distance freestyle events, with bests of 4:28.65/15:24.62, show his potential there too.

Other commitments in this class so far include Matthew Conway from the Blue Devil Swim Club (no, not Duke, rather in Gurnee, Illinoi). He’s a 1:50.68 200 butterflier that will also follow in the footsteps of Olympic Trials finalist Luchsinger, and join super sophomore Dominick Glavich, who has been absent for most of this season with an injury. The two ranked 1st and 2nd last year in the ACC in that 200 fly.

Also verbally committing recently was Josh Beals who trains with Crimson Aquatics, one of the best clubs in the Northeastern United States. He is a distance freestyler and a butterflier; his bests in yards run from a 4:26.9 in the 500 free to a 15:18.95 in the 1650, as well as top times of 51.4/1:51.1 in the 100/200 butterflies.