First-Year Class Elevating Cavalier Men’s Program

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The longer their visit went on, the worse Todd DeSorbo and Tyler Fenwick felt about the University of Virginia’s chances with Maximus Williamson, one of the top two swimmers in the high school Class of 2025.

It was October 2023, and DeSorbo, the Cavaliers’ head coach, and Fenwick, his senior associate head coach, had flown to Texas to see Williamson in his hometown Keller, a suburb of Fort Worth.

“We were watching practice, and Tyler and I were sitting with Maximus’ mom in the stands, just talking to her, and she’s just going on and on about all the other schools that Maximus is considering,” DeSorbo recalled. “Like, on and on and on about it, to the point where Tyler and I were like, ‘We got no shot with this kid.’ ”

DeSorbo laughed. “We were basically ready to leave way before we were supposed to go home. We were like, ‘OK, this is a lost cause, let’s move on.’ So we then go to dinner, we then go to his house to talk, and randomly Thomas calls.”

That would be Thomas Heilman, a U.S. Olympian who was the other top-two recruit in the Class of ’25. Heilman’s call to Williamson was anything but random, it turned out. The two phenoms were good friends who’d decided the previous night to commit to UVA during DeSorbo’s and Fenwick’s visit to Keller.

“So we were thinking about a way to surprise him,” Williamson said, “and I was just like, ‘You should FaceTime me while we’re having dinner or something.’ ”

First, though, Jennifer Williamson got to scare the coaches by gushing about other schools. “She loved the fact that she pulled a fast one on us,” DeSorbo said.

Williamson said he could tell that DeSorbo’s hopes were fading as the visit went on—“He was definitely nervous”—but the mood changed when the call came from Heilman and the acclaimed recruits said they were bound for Charlottesville.

“Todd and Tyler both kind of lost their minds and went crazy,” Williamson said.

“It was pretty wild,” DeSorbo said of the moment.

Heilman took four official visits: to UVA, Florida, Texas and, last, Arizona State. Williamson took three: to UVA, Florida and Arizona State, which he toured with Heilman.

“We were kind of both down to UVA and Florida in our final two,” Williamson said. “And so we had a couple of discussions between our ASU visit and when we eventually committed to Virginia.”

Heilman, who graduated this year from Western Albemarle High School in Crozet, said he and Williamson “had discussions before and during the recruiting process about the idea of going to the same place. We didn’t like the idea of having to swim against each other, but we kind of always had the mindset that we’ll go where it makes the most sense for us individually. And if it happens to be the same place, then great.”

They’ve known each other for several years. When he and Williamson were young, Heilman said, “we kind of just went back and forth breaking each other’s records. So I guess we kind of bonded over that a little bit.”

Two years after rocking the swimming world with their commitments, Heilman and Williamson are finally on Grounds, and they’re the headliners in a freshman class that’s considered the nation’s best on the men’s side. The first-years “train at a high level and they race at a high level,” DeSorbo said. “So it’s been a pretty easy transition for them. And they really are elevating everybody around them, which is pretty awesome.”

The UVA women have won five straight NCAA titles, and they’re ranked No. 1 nationally again this season. The stars of the Hoos’ dynasty have included Kate Douglass and the Walsh sisters. Douglass enrolled at Virginia in 2019, Alex Walsh in 2020 and Gretchen Walsh in 2021.

“Todd made it very apparent [during the recruiting process] that he wants to take us to where the women are now,” Williamson said, “and he kind of described it as like when Kate, Alex, and Gretchen all committed in that two-year time span. That’s really what kicked it off.”

To DeSorbo, adding Heilman and Williamson in the same year is comparable to “getting Kate Douglass and Alex Walsh in the same class instead of a year apart. Those guys, they’re generational talents, which is the same as what those girls are. They can definitely transform the program.”

In No. 13 UVA’s season-opening dual meet Oct. 10 against host Florida, Heilman won the 100 butterfly, 200 fly and 50 fly. His winning times in the 100 (45.29) and 200 (1:41.69) were the third-fastest in program history.

Williamson won two events in Gainesville: the 200 freestyle and 200 individual medley. His time in the 200 IM (1:43.55) ranks sixth all-time at UVA.

The UVA men won both relays at the dual meet, the 400 medley and 400 freestyle, with Heilman and Williamson competing in each race. Heilman was named ACC Male Swimmer of the Week for his performance in Gainesville.

Both Cavalier teams are back in action in ACC dual meets Friday at the Aquatic & Fitness Center, where they’ll host North Carolina’s men and women. UVA will honor the 2024-25 women’s team for its NCAA championship before the meet.

There’s more to the men’s freshman class than Heilman and Williamson. Their eight classmates “are definitely going to contribute [this season],” DeSorbo said. “Aside from Maximus and Thomas, there’s a couple of other top-10 recruits in that class, a couple more top-20 recruits in that class, It’s a really great supporting cast. I think that they still have to develop a little bit to make an impact at the NCAA level, but I think they will really quickly.”

The men’s program needed an injection of talent. In 2017-18, DeSorbo’s first season at Virginia, the Wahoo men placed 29^th at the NCAA meet, and they finished 10^th in 2018-19, ninth in 2020-21, and 10^th in 2021-22. (Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA meet was canceled in 2019-20). But they slipped to 15^th in 2022-23, to 17^th in 2023-24, and to 32^nd in 2024-25.

Elevating the men’s program is “huge priority,” DeSorbo said. “For a long time, it’s been a goal to try to win an NCAA title on both sides in the same year, because I think that’s only been done by two other schools, and it’s been a long time since it’s been done. So it’s definitely a big priority of ours to get our men to that same level. I think our guys are kind of where our women were five years ago, on the verge of that breakout, and they’re young.”

Of the 22 swimmers on the men’s roster, 10 are freshmen, six are juniors, three are seniors, and three are sophomores.

Heilman said the program’s “two biggest goals for the next four years are to win national team championships and put people on Olympic swim teams. And I think during the recruiting process, those were the two biggest [selling points of the coaching staff].”

It’s difficult to field an elite team without having elite individuals. In Heilman, UVA had a generational talent in its own backyard. Even better for the Hoos, he had strong ties to the University.

Heilman’s brother Matthew is a senior in DeSorbo’s program, and their mother, Carrie Heilman, is an associate professor in UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce. She’s also the University’s faculty athletics representative.

“I always loved the University community and grew up going to the football and basketball games,” Thomas Heilman said, “and those are probably some of my favorite memories growing up. But from a swimming perspective, I never really thought that this would be the right fit for me until I started to actually get to know the people on the team, the coaches, and started to connect with them. And then eventually, seeing the couple of classes ahead of us bringing their talent and hard work to the team, and me being able to see that firsthand as I was more aware of what was going on, that changed my mind a little bit.”

Matthew Heilman didn’t interject himself in his brother’s recruiting, “and that was something I was pretty appreciative of,” Thomas Heilman said, “because I feel like he always had my best interest in mind. But once I committed, he was probably the happiest person on the team.”

Thomas Heilman represented the United States at the Olympic Games last summer in Paris, where he won a silver medal in the 4×100 medley relay. He placed 10^th in the 200 fly and 18^th in the 100 fly.

“Every year, every summer, you learn something new,” Heilman said. “With the Olympics being the ultimate stage, the environment is just heightened a little bit. But every summer when you’re around the U.S. national team, you see new things that you can take back home to implement into your own training and lifestyle.”

The training environment at UVA, Williamson said, is more intense than he’d experienced before arriving on Grounds.

“I’ve never worked harder in my life,” Williamson said. “Being with my teammates here has pushed me further than I’ve ever been pushed before. I think it’s external and internal. I think it’s just the new environment, new teammates, new coaches, everything just kind of pushes you to the next level, because you have to elevate yourself with your surroundings.”

Heilman agreed. “The talent level is obviously going to be much higher on a college team compared to your high school or club team, but a lot of it is just wanting to push yourself and more so push your teammates. Because of the conversations we have about what we want to achieve as a team, we know we can’t be complacent in any phase of our life.”

Life as a college student-athlete is “kind of exactly how I expected it to be,” Williamson said. “It wasn’t too much of a surprise, because I was here over the summer training with the team, getting to know the coaches, getting to know the campus. So I didn’t have too much of a struggle adapting to the big move halfway across the country.”

Heilman said his UVA experience has been “probably even more and better than I could have expected. I think as a team, we’re having a lot of fun, working hard together, and we stay pretty busy. The weeks go by quickly. It feels like we’re just stacking good weeks of training on top of each other and it’s going to pay off pretty soon.”

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