Senior sets sights on Pacific
Tosa West’s Larson likes fit
It’s not every day a high school athlete from Wisconsin ends up at the University of the Pacific.
But Wauwatosa West swimmer Danny Larson is a future Tiger, even though he admits he’s never heard of the Stockton, Calif., school — essentially located directly east of San Francisco and south of Sacramento.
Larson, the reigning Milwaukee Journal Sentinel area swimmer of the year and defending Division 1 state champion in the 100-yard freestyle, also took official visits to Connecticut, East Carolina, UNLV and Wisconsin.
With the exception of UW, not exactly the norm for the local swimmers.
But Larson knew he wanted to continue the sport somewhere far away, he just had no idea where when the process began last spring.
“I literally printed out a sheet of every Division I and Division II men’s swim teams and went through them all, tried to eliminate them based on academic and athletic fit,” he said. “From there, filled out 80some recruiting surveys, emailed a lot of coaches and then based off of who responded, contacted them all.”
Unlike some sports, college swim coaches cannot call or have offcampus contact with prospective athletes until July before their senior year.
“Kids get recruited when they’re like 8 for basketball,” Larson said. “It’s crazy.”
So last spring, Larson printed his list and his process of elimination began.
“I think some of my fellow athletes that were getting recruited thought it was a tedious process, and they didn’t want to do that much for it,” Larson said. “It took up a lot of time, but for me, I had to know there was no stone unturned.
“I looked at them all. Like Harvard, I’m not smart enough to get in. So
you take that one off. … Through talking to all the coaches, the two that stood out to me the most were UConn and Pacific. UConn I’d seen in the basketball tournament; they had some name recognition with me. Pacific I’d never heard of before, but I just got a good vibe from the coach and decided I wanted to check it out more.”
Heidi Hegwood, the coach of the Wauwatosa East/West co-op team, graduated from Plymouth in 2004 and went on to swim at UW-Milwaukee. Despite her experience as a college recruit, she says Larson kept her “in the loop” and had a few questions, but mostly did it on his own.
“As I tell a lot of my athletes, even my students, you’ll get a feel for the school when you go and see it,” Hegwood said. “And I always suggest, even if they’re not sure, to see as many schools as they can.”
So in a seven-week span in the fall, Larson visited his five schools. The fourth trip was to Pacific, and he knew that was his choice even though he still had to travel to East Carolina.
In November, he officially became a Tiger.
Larson could have waited until the spring signing period but says he decided before his high school season began for peace of mind.
“It’s stressful, hectic, exciting,” said Larson, who has less than a month until his final state meet. “It was a lot of fun going on all these trips, meeting all these people and it’s probably the only time I’m going to be recruited for anything, so I tried to have fun with it. But at the end of the day, it was a huge decision regarding my future. It was kind of daunting at times.
“Now I can kind of rest easier knowing who I am going to swim for next year.”