USC freshman swimmer uses social media to find college home

While most college students use social media to enhance their social lives, freshman freestyle swimmer Edith Lingmann used it to advance her recruitment to the South Carolina swim team.

Lingmann, a native of Wurzburg, Germany, attended the American National School in Kuwait for four years. She knew she wanted to swim at a university in the United States, but didn’t know which schools to consider. That is, until she saw fellow German and USC junior Nils Wich-Glasen’s post about his swimming experiences on Facebook.

“I talked to a couple of friends and I saw on a friend’s Facebook that he was here at USC, so I just talked to him and asked him how it was,” Lingmann said.

USC swim coach McGee Moody noticed Lingmann’s results from some of her high school meets and reached out to the then-high school senior via email. After emailing back and forth with McGee and assistant coach Kevin Swander, Lingmann set up her first interview with them via Skype.

“Skype is great to chat with international recruits because we can sit down and it’s an internet transmission, which is regulated by the NCAA,” Moody said. “There’s a much more personal-type conversation over Skype. It kind of connects them more with us than through email or a phone call.”

Once enrolled at South Carolina, Lingmann wasted no time contributing to the team as she won the 100-yard freestyle event with a time of 51.33 seconds against Arkansas and Kentucky in October. She also finished second in the event with a time of 51.59 seconds at USC’s meet against Texas A&M.

At the Georgia Tech Invite in November, she finished ninth in the 100-yard freestyle with her fastest time of the season at 50.43 seconds.

“I think at Georgia Tech what we saw is a young lady who kind of looked and sat down with her coaches and said ‘You tell me what to do and I’m just going to do it and let’s see what happens,’ ” Moody said.

If she continues to build strength and fine-tune her technique, Moody is optimistic that Lingmann’s best swimming is ahead of her.

“One thing that we can remedy rather quickly is making her stronger, so we do see a lot of potential in her,” Moody said. “Her best meet of the year is hopefully going to be the SEC Championships with the goal of making the NCAA Championships. I definitely think she has that in her.”