Jordan McElhaney ‘11 Recruiting Profile

Personal Statement

Hello, thank you for viewing my profile. My name is Jordan McElhaney and I am Senior at Butler Area Senior High School in Butler PA and I'm looking forward to competing in college for a coach and on a team where I can continue to improve and hopefully be a contributing member as a Freshman. I am 5'6" tall and 140 lbs. and I feel my biggest attribute is that I am versatile. I swim the buuterfly and the IM, but can also swim distance and sprints. I've been working hard on improving all four strokes and hope to continue showing significant improvements in all of them.

I was able to drop 8 seconds off of my 100 Fly time and swam 1:02.99 which I swam at the WPIAL Championships during my Junior year. In addition, I've also dropped 6 seconds off my PR in the IM and now sit at 2:21.39 at the same WPIAL Championships. In both of my individual events at WPIAL's, I was able to improve my final placing 10 spots over where I was seeded.

I am looking forward to an exciting Senior year. My personal goals this year are to break 1:00.00 in the 100 Fly, drop to the low 'teens in my IM and hopefully get a chance to swim some freestyle this year. I only had chances to swim in relays last year, but hope I get the opportunity to improve on some of my individual times this year. I want to improve enough to have a shot at making the podium at WPIALS this year. I also want to make sure all of our relays qualify for WPIALS as well. We're also getting some depth with some incoming Freshman on our team, so I hope our overall team record improves as well. This will be my 3rd coach in 4 years, so it's difficult to say what I will swim this year.

I am still undecided as to what I'd like to major in, but as of right now, I'm leaning towards Education with a minor in Spanish and possibly coaching, but I'm not 100% certain yet. The school I'm looking for must have a women's swimming program that I can help in achieving any team goals and they can help me reach my personal goals of qualifying for the NCAA Championships. I have always been a hard worker in school and in the pool and I am tremendously competitive. I have been swimming since the age of 7 and I have the heart and desire to continue getting better. I am open to all levels of competition and all schools.

I trained during the Summer in long course from 6:30 - 8:30 AM and worked full time as a lifeguard at our county pool. Because of my nearly 40 hour/week work schedule, I didn't swim any long course meets. In addition to lifeguarding, I took and passed the WSI course and I taught swim lessons twice a day at the pool. I really enjoyed it and received a lot of compliments and was requested by parents of the children I taught. I am considering working as an Assistant Coach for the pools Summer league team next year in preparation for college.

I was recently among a group of lifeguards recognized at a "Heroes Breakfast" in Pittsburgh for our efforts in rescuing a young boy who hit his head on the diving board at the pool this Summer. (The link is attached in my profile). He was life-flighted to Pittsburgh after the accident and has fully recovered since. It was the first time my training was ever tested like this and it was nice to know that I reacted how I'd been trained and that we worked as a team to make the rescue a complete success. It's something I've learned from and I've gained confidence in my abilities from it and will never forget it.

Thank you for your consideration.