Horns happy McBroom took the long way to swimming at Texas

AUSTIN, Texas - It’s become a bit of an obvious story line, how All-American Michael McBroom, who went to high school in the Houston suburbs, ended up initially swimming for the University of Minnesota, not national power Texas.

It seems Longhorns coach Eddie Reese never recruited him.

While McBroom, a Minnesota native, was competing at the UIL state championships in Austin, at Reese’s home pool, the Texas coach and his Longhorns were swimming for a Big 12 title in Missouri.
“He says he forgot,” McBroom says of Reese.

“I never got to watch him at a state meet,” Reese counters. “He had a really good summer after (the UIL meet).”

The late-blooming McBroom did find his way to Austin, transferring from Minnesota three years ago. He made an immediate impact, becoming the first Longhorn to win an NCAA championship in the 1,650-yard freestyle, the 66-lap mile, swimming’s marathon event. A photo of McBroom jumping tall out of the water to celebrate the national title at the Minnesota pool made Sports Illustrated.

McBroom will swim his final college meet at his home pool this week at the Big 12 championships at the Jamail Texas Swim Center. The top-ranked Longhorns will be working to lower their times and fine-tune their flip turns and relay starts at the four-day meet starting Wednesday.

Texas hasn’t lost a conference title since 1979, dating back to the days of the old Southwest Conference. So long as the Longhorns field a team, they should extend the title streak to 34 straight. The main goal is meeting time qualifications for the NCAA team championships March 28-30 in Indianapolis. The meet will invite 235 swimmers and 35 divers.

McBroom recently received another Sports Illustrated mention as he tries to show he belongs in the upper tier of U.S. distance swimmers. In Indy, he’ll be facing Olympians Connor Jaeger of Michigan and Georgia’s Andrew Gemmell. Bulldog Martin Grodzki is the defending 1,650 champion.

Earlier this month, the NCAA awarded McBroom the record in the 1,000-yard freestyle. On Feb. 1, he swam a time of 8 minutes, 43.48 seconds in a double-dual meet against Arizona and Southern Methodist. The 1,000-free is the distance primarily used in weekly dual meets during the season.

Swimmers usually don’t compete in the more taxing 1,650 unless it’s a bigger competition, like a conference or national meet.

It took some research over four days for the NCAA to verify that McBroom had broken the 12-year-old record set by Michigan’s Chris Thompson, an Olympic bronze medalist in 2000 who also owned the NCAA and U.S. standard in the 1,650 for 11 years.

“You just don’t break those records, any of them,” Reese said. “Those are hard to break and it takes a special person to do that.”

McBroom’s big swim at the Big 12s will be Saturday. He’ll also compete in the 500 free and 400 individual medley. He’s adjusted his training since last year, when he was eighth at the NCAAs, 10 seconds slower than his winning time in 2011. He hasn’t swum as many miles during the week in an effort to lower his time.

“He’s such a hard worker,” Reese said of McBroom. “He’s just starting to get good, not good, really good.”