college swimming career.
After two years of impressive performances at the Georgia
Senior Short Course championships held at Georgia Tech, the host school has to
be elated over his final decision.
scholarship with Georgia Tech.
choosing to become a Yellow Jacket. “I liked the academic level that some of
their swimmers were at, also. It seemed better than some of the other places I
(visited).”
Florida, North Carolina State, Duke and North Carolina.
“Some of those places just didn’t feel right,” he said.
Poorman plans on studying architecture. He said he prefers commercial designs
and houses to industrial designs. He has some ideas, but nothing specific as of
yet.
designing skills. If they become anything like his swimming skills, someone
will have a nice home to enjoy one day.
meet, and Poorman won the 200 freestyle finals in 1:39.96. In other finals, the
18-year-old was fourth in the 100 butterfly, 200 backstroke and 50 freestyle.
in 1:39.20, the 100 free in 45.83 seconds and the 500 free in 4:35.39.
part in the Senior Long Course state meet and won the A final of the 200 free
in 1:54.65 after swimming 1:59.09 in the preliminaries.
course for this year, and I was also in long course right after my sophomore
year,” said Poorman, who represented Swim Macon. “The time that I got this past
year put me in third for the whole nation.”
for meets. His personal best times in the various freestyles are 1:36 for the
200, 45 seconds for the 100 and 4:34 in the 500. He’s also done the 100
backstroke in 51.7 seconds.
Tech),” said Poorman. “I will also do some other strokes here and there just to
keep me interested in freestyle.”
learned under coaches James Smith and Lee Stockslager of Swim Macon.
the school year,” said Poorman about the amount of commitment needed to reach
his type of swimming accolades. “And about four hours during the summer. Two in
the morning and two in the afternoon. There’s a break on Sunday, but almost
every day I’m swimming.”
room for improvement and more to achieve in the sport.
Declan’s older brother Paul Poorman also swam in college for
two years. He said there never was a big sibling rivalry in their household
when it came to the pool.
look up to people for inspiration. But it kind of helped having some
competition elsewhere.”
HHJ News
