The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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inside michigan athletics history. It was his first of two indi- own for the distance races. vidual national championships on "The training staff is really specthe evening. Jeager placed the sig- tacular. I joined the distance group nificance of a national title above ev- last year, and senior Ryan Feely and erything else in his swimming career. junior Sean Ryan have both been na"Honestly, it means a lot more to tional championship-caliber swimsay that I was on a national cham- mers. We have a culture of hard work pionship team than for the distance training the others," he said. "If here, which is great." we hadn't won the te The Maize and Blue am title, and I had just began to separate themwon an individual title selves from the rest of alone, it would not have the field early in the mattered. That's what's meet, and even defendgoing to separate this ing national champion team from others. California had trouble "If you look back keeping up. years from now, it's goU-M's depth enabled ing to define the team it to fend off Cal and that we had this year. everyone else. With The sacrifices that we so many swimmers made, and the drive and racing to fast times, passion that we have for points began to rack up this sport, and what we quickly. The 200-yard did for Michigan." butterfly featured three Bottom preaches a swimmers collecting unity at Michigan unteam points. Freshman like any other, and JeaDylan Bosch had to be ger was quick to point anticipating his signaout that there were Junior Connor Jeager, the ture event. Bosch can many behind this na- Big Ten Swimmer of the Year, be regularly found on tional championship won individual national titles the podium after the — and not all of them in the 500-yard freestyle and butterfly, and he didn't the 1,650-yard freestyle. were in the swimming Photo courtesy disappoint. He won the michigan athletic media relations preliminaries, and then pool. "I feel like I have to give a lot of proceeded to finish in third place in credit to the coaching staff," he said. the final with a time of 1:41.33. Kyle "Coach Bottom and the rest of the Whitaker (eighth, 1:43.84) and Pestaff — their coaching style is really ter Brumm (15th, 1:45.02) rounded innovative. [Assistant coach] Josh out the trio of Wolverines with highWhite is in charge of the distance water marks. The crown jewel of the weekend group here, and he's coming into his