Jane Kavanagh commits to Notre Dame: A symphony of patience and well-timed development

I have sat through many college recruiting announcements during my 17 years in this profession. Some are mere notices, some feel like promises of the future, and some force me to pause and think more about the process than the result. The story of Jane Kavanagh, a 16-year-old from Westfield, New Jersey, who has just committed to Notre Dame women's swimming for the fall of 2027, belongs to the third category. Looking at Kavanagh's record, the first thing that draws my attention is not the silver medal at YMCA Short Course Nationals with a 1:48.86 finish in the 200-yard freestyle. What I notice is the way she has built her career: not through shocking sudden breakthroughs from above, but through steady accumulation across seasons. This is a quality that writers like me call "the swimmer's breathing rhythm" – sometimes rising, sometimes diving, but always knowing where she is headed. Let me place Kavanagh into context. Notre Dame just finished the 2026 ACC Championships in 11th place out of 15 teams with 366 points. This is not a program that dominates; it is a program patiently building its roster. Kavanagh's commitment along with four other recruits – Eleanor Geraghty, Meghan Bluethmann, Maris Williams, and Sarah Paisley Owen – suggests a clear strategy: adding depth rather than searching for a single superstar. But if we stopped there, this story would be an ordinary recruiting note. What interests me is the gap between Kavanagh's current times and the level of competition in the ACC. She finished 2nd at YMCA Short Course Nationals with 1:48.86, but to swim into the ACC final she would need approximately 1:46.88. A gap of almost 2 seconds – a time that sounds small but in swimming represents a different world. From my years of following races, a 2-second gap in the 200-yard freestyle is not impossible to overcome. But it requires a specific development plan, not just hope. Watching college swimming, I have realized that the most successful athletes are not always those with the best times at age 16, but those who can maintain a steady trajectory of development throughout their four college years. Kavanagh has 2.5 years before arriving at Notre Dame – a valuable period of time if used correctly. What allows an athlete at this age to improve by 2 seconds? From a technical perspective, there are three factors that I always track. First is underwater capability – those dolphin kicks after starts and turns. This is the area where improvement comes fastest because it is about technique, not aerobic capacity. Second is turn speed – in a 25-yard pool, a swimmer covering 200 yards will execute 7 turns. If Kavanagh can improve each turn by 0.2 seconds, she gains 1.4 seconds just from turns. Third, and perhaps most important, is race strategy – what I call "the emotional map of the race." In the 200-yard freestyle, a swimmer must know when to conserve and when to accelerate. I remember interviewing a former YMCA national champion who told me: "I don't swim the 200 with my body, I swim it with my mind." Kavanagh, by finishing 2nd at YMCA Nationals, has shown an ability to compete under pressure. But the challenge is to upgrade her entire technical system to a new level, not just in one race. However, what I find most remarkable is the difference between Kavanagh's results in short course (25 yards) and long course (50 meters). At Summer Juniors, held in a 50-meter pool, she placed 102nd in the 200-meter backstroke at 2:25.64 and 130th in the 100-meter freestyle at 59.30. Meanwhile, at YMCA Short Course Nationals, she placed 4th in the 200-yard backstroke at 1:58.36 and 4th in the 200-yard IM at 2:02.89. This discrepancy may reveal an important principle: Kavanagh has an advantage when racing in short-course pools. In swimming, this often reflects skills in turns, underwater technique, and speed coming off walls. An athlete who performs well in short course often has solid technical foundations but may lack the aerobic base to sustain speed over longer durations. This raises a question: Can Kavanagh develop her long-course swimming over the next 2.5 years? College NCAA swimming competes primarily in short course (25 yards) during the main season, but national championships and international competitions take place in long course. I have witnessed many athletes who are strong only in short course struggle when transitioning to long course at the college level. But I have also seen young talents develop fully when coached in an environment with a long-term plan. Notre Dame, with coaches Mike Batore and Trevor Mankiewicz, could provide that environment. A crucial detail that the original article almost overlooks is the overlap between Kavanagh and senior swimmer Becky Rentz. Rentz, currently a sophomore at Notre Dame, scored at ACC Championships with a 1:46.16 in the 200-yard freestyle. This means when Kavanagh arrives in 2027, she will have three seasons alongside Rentz. This is a great development opportunity – not only because Rentz will serve as a benchmark for Kavanagh's progress, but because internal competition can push both swimmers forward. If I were a coach, I would look at this overlap and ask: How can we leverage it? One answer is to create a specialized training group for 200-yard freestylers, where both can train together, push each other in practice sets, and build a healthy competitive dynamic. But there is a counterintuitive angle I want to explore. In football and athletics, I have always believed that a five-substitution rule in the final 20 minutes turns matches into battles of focused energy expenditure. In swimming, the same occurs with event selection. Kavanagh currently races multiple events: 200 free, 200 back, 200 IM, 100 free. This can be an advantage while she is young, but it can also become a trap if she does not identify her primary strength. Look at the history of American swimming. It is rare for an athlete to reach world-class level in several distinct events. Even the greatest, like Katie Ledecky, focus on a specific event group. Athletes like Michael Phelps are the exception, not the rule. Kavanagh, with her strongest results in the 200 free, may develop best by focusing on the event where she holds the greatest advantage relative to her team. I do not believe a 16-year-old athlete should be restricted to one event. Variety in training promotes well-rounded development and prevents overuse injuries. But as she approaches her senior year, Kavanagh and her coaches at Fanwood-Scotch Plains YMCA must begin thinking about specialization. In swimming, specialization is not just choosing a race; it is aligning the entire training system with that race. I want to offer a comparison with the football world. When I track a young talent, I do not merely look at how many goals he scores. I watch how he moves without the ball, how he positions himself in congested spaces. Similarly, with Kavanagh, I want to see how she swims when there is no competitive pressure, how she maintains technique when fatigued, and most importantly, how she responds to bad days. A swimming season contains many bad days. There are days when the body does not cooperate, the feel for the water is off, and results do not reflect the effort invested in training. An athlete grows through how they face such days. This brings me to a larger question: Can Notre Dame – ranked 11th in the ACC – provide enough support for Kavanagh to navigate these difficult periods? Notre Dame is not an elite swimming program like Stanford or Texas. But that is not necessarily negative. An environment with moderate pressure, where an athlete can develop in stability rather than face unrealistic expectations from day one, can be a positive factor. Kavanagh will have time to adjust to the new environment, learn the college training intensity, and gradually find her place in the team. The truth is that most recruits do not become stars immediately. They need time to adapt, and a program like Notre Dame can offer that. When I assess the factors behind a college athlete's success, I look not only at natural talent, but at the fit between the athlete and the program. Kavanagh may not be an athlete capable of reaching Olympic eligibility right away, but she has qualities a developing program can use: durability, the ability to compete in multiple events, and a positive mindset in her interview. She thanked her coaches and support staff before claiming any personal credit – a sign of an athlete who understands the support system around her. I close this analysis not with a declaration about Kavanagh's future, but with a question. Can we learn to view development as a long-term process rather than a fleeting destination when reading recruiting announcements? In a world that increasingly demands immediate results, the patient growth rhythm of athletes like Kavanagh may remind us that, in swimming as in life, touching the wall at the right moment matters more than touching it first from the very beginning.