If you were to glance at UF’s swimming and diving roster, you could easily mistake it for an Olympic lineup, with athletes on the team representing 11 nations across four continents.
Gregg Troy, the head coach of Florida’s men’s and women’s swimming teams, can’t remember exactly how many countries he has been to around the world, because he said it’s more than 20.
During the course of his 38-year career, Troy has served as an assistant coach in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and was the team’s head coach for the 2012 London Olympics.
Throughout his 17 years at Florida, Troy has used his international influence to bring a consistent influx of overseas talent to Gainesville.
Troy has coached more than 75 Olympians and 250 All-American swimmers while helping them to claim 155 U.S. and international records. If there is one person that can spot talent in the pool, it’s Troy.
But he also realizes that the United States is not the only country that can produce strong swimmers.
Florida has a combined 18 swimmers on both the men’s and women’s teams who are international athletes, coming from as far away as Greece, Poland and Austria.
"The main reason we recruit them is because some of them are faster than the Americans," Troy said.
"Also, sometimes the foreign athletes are more appreciative of the opportunity because it isn’t available in their country. Americans grow up thinking that it’s going to be available to compete and go to school at the same time, and in a lot of foreign countries you either compete or you go to school."
However, Florida doesn’t have to spend all of its energy looking for talent in these countries.
Most of the time it comes to them.
"We have a really good international reputation, and so normally the athletes find us," said women’s associate coach Martyn Wilby, one of the team’s international recruiting coaches.
"We have a heavy focus on international swimming, so they contact us, we don’t contact them."
Florida’s record of success with international swimmers has encouraged other athletes from around the world to come to Gainesville.
Florida has also benefitted from recruiting swimmers that have younger siblings.
Many of them decide to follow in their brother’s or sister’s footsteps.
On the men’s side alone, there are three pairs of brothers.
Senior Corey Main, an Auckland, New Zealand, native, was an athlete that Florida didn’t know about until he started showing interest in UF.
His coaches back home reached out to Troy about potentially swimming in Gainesville.
"My swimming director put me in touch with Troy and that is how I got a scholarship to swim over here," Main said.
"I had heard about him (and Florida) and the swimmers he had coached before."
To this point in his Florida career, Main has netted 12 All-American selections, complementing a spot on the 2015 All-Southeastern Conference Second Team.
His younger brother, redshirt freshman Bailey Main, recognized that Corey’s success merited his own 8,070 mile flight to Gainesville.
"I didn’t really have much of a recruiting experience, because Corey was here," Bailey said. "It made it easy to choose this place."
Troy said it was helpful that the Main brothers arrived in Gainesville having already seen success in the pool.
"They are both very dedicated to what they do," Troy said.
"They are used to being successful at home, so they came in with a little bit of a winner’s mentality."
Although international swimmers are attracted to the idea of swimming at an elite program with a former Olympic head coach at the helm, leaving the confines of their home country for the unknowns of the United States still constitutes a leap of faith.
This is something Kahlia Warner, a senior diver from Queensland, Australia, found out firsthand upon her arrival in the Spring of 2013.
"It was daunting. Moving to a new country is a huge deal," Warner said. "It was scary, but it was one (of) the best things I ever did."
Before she joined the team, Florida paid for her 9,572 mile flight from Queensland to Gainesville, a recruiting pitch meant to introduce her to her future teammates and the campus she would eventually call home.
In just 72 hours, Warner knew that she wanted to continue her swimming career at Florida.
"I decided on Florida because of the overall atmosphere," Warner said. "The football stadium was a huge thing for me too. We don’t have anything like that at home, so it was amazing.
"And all the facilities on campus. I was coming here for athletics, so just to be able to see them and know I was going to be involved with them was huge for me."
Following this season, the Olympic hopeful plans to train for the Olympic Trials, aiming to secure a spot on the Australian National Team.
In contrast with her teammate, senior Jessica Theilmann of Newcastle, England, underwent a completely different recruiting experience.
"It was a little crazy because (Florida) recruited me and at first I thought I wanted to stay home so I said no," Theilmann said. "But then I changed my mind six weeks before school started. It was a mad rush, but the way that they helped me out was incredible."
Theilmann has grasped the opportunity, forming tight-knit relationships with her teammates.
However, swimming in the U.S. is a little different than swimming in England.
"The hardest part of swimming in a different country is racing tired," Theilmann said. "In Great Britain we are used to getting a little more rest, so we are swimming a bit fresher, but in America we are racing nearly every weekend. It benefits at the end of the year but getting used to that is a hard process."
Consider senior Pawel Werner, a Wroclaw, Poland, native who chose to move 5,024 miles away from home to Gainesville for the opportunity to develop under Troy.
"I mean, obviously I had heard of him, he’s the coach of Elizabeth Beisel and Ryan Lochte, who were both National Swimmers of the Year," Werner said.
The chance to study what he wanted, computer engineering, was also vital to his recruiting decision.
"I didn’t have the conditions to swim and study in Poland," Werner said. "The only option to swim and study is if you study physical academics. Here it was possible to study what I wanted. The whole experience has been amazing for me."
Troy has appreciated what Werner has brought to the program over the last four years, and — factoring in the language barrier and long distance from home — understands that his decision to swim at UF was no small feat.
"He adds real competitive instincts, he really races extremely well," Troy said. "He comes to practice everyday with a good attitude. He brings something to practice that helps other people get better."
The U.S. has given Florida’s international athletes new opportunities, and many of them plan on staying in the U.S. after they leave Gainesville.
"After college, I plan to stay in America. Hopefully I can get a Visa and stay here," Theilmann said. "I just believe that there is a lot more opportunity in America. That’s where I want to be."
Troy’s coaching ability, combined with the athletic abilities of the international swimmers he signs, should continue to spur Florida’s swimming and diving programs to national recognition for years to come.
"It’s a big world. If we can get someone to swim from outside, it’s really important," Troy said.
"It infuses new talent and different ideas, and a different perspective."
Follow Lauren Staff on Twitter @Lstaff27
Under coach Gregg Troy (above), Florida returns 11 All-Americans this season on the men’s team and two-time Olympian Elizabeth Beisel to the women.
