Jordan Crooks has experienced quite a few surreal moments in the last couple of years.
Not only did he represent his home country of the Cayman Islands as a swimmer in the 2024 summer Olympics in Paris, but in December 2024 he broke a world record—twice.
However, he imagines that walking across the commencement stage this spring will be just as surreal, particularly as a student-athlete who was not heavily recruited coming out of high school.
Crooks met Tennessee’s coaches by chance at a qualifying swim meet for the Tokyo Olympics in January 2020. He didn’t make the cut for the games, but he did catch the interest of UT Director of Swimming and Diving Matt Kredich.
“Tennessee hosted the event, and I hit it off with the UT coaches, met with them, and they showed interest in getting me to come on an official visit.”
Crooks never got to take that official visit because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but UT coaches continued to check in with him every couple of weeks. Two other schools showed interest in Crooks, but he never visited them.
“I didn’t feel as drawn to them as I did to Tennessee. The coaches made me feel welcome,” Crooks says. “They made me feel like they cared not just about my swimming but about me as a person.”
So Crooks committed to Tennessee, coming to campus for the first time in fall 2021 on his first day of classes.
Jordan Crooks and Swimming & Diving Director Matt Kredich. Photo courtesy of Tennessee Athletics
His first semester on campus was a big transition. Crooks says while he had great people around him to motivate him in the classroom and in the pool, he had never been away from his home in the Cayman Islands for more than two weeks and he missed his family.
In the turquoise waters of the western Caribbean is where Crooks developed his love for swimming. He tried soccer and basketball but got really interested in fishing around the age of 11, which led him to free diving and diving for conch and lobster.
From the age of 11 to 15, he swam competitively in the CARIFTA championship meets with little success. But at 16, he began to take his training more seriously and listen more intently to his coach.
Crooks medaled in nearly every relay he swam at the CARIFTA meet that year and went on to qualify for the Youth Olympics in Argentina. It was then that he realized swimming could be a big part of his future.
He attended his first World Championships the year before he came to Tennessee and has competed each year since then.
It was there in December 2024 that Crooks’s swimming career came full circle, when he set a new world record in the short-course 50-meter freestyle. He became the first person ever to swim it faster than 20 seconds, finishing with a 19.90 performance during the semifinals—.61 seconds ahead of the next-fastest swimmer.
Crooks credits the resources, coaching staff, and his teammates at UT with helping him to blossom.
“The coaches always had a different perspective—a different way of looking at the sport, and I found myself wanting to learn and being hungry for more,” he says.
Jordan Crooks and his teammates Gui Caribe, Lamar Taylor, and Nikoli Blackman celebrating the 400 free relay win. Photo courtesy of Tennessee Athletics
While swimming for UT, Crooks has amassed some impressive wins and achievements, including being a four-time NCAA champion, twice taking home gold in the 50-yard freestyle and once each in the 200 free relay and 400 free relay. He is also an NCAA record holder in the 100-yard freestyle and the second-fastest swimmer of all time in the 50-yard freestyle.
He is an 11-time SEC champion, 25-time All-American, an Olympian, a world champion and a world record holder.
And just as coaches helped propel him in the pool, Crooks says professors like Blair Presley Bone in the Haslam College of Business pushed him in the classroom.
“She challenged me to come out of my comfort zone and help me get a lot better at selling an idea, a thing, or even myself to somebody,” says Crooks, a supply chain management major.
In class, Bone would ask students to role play certain characters and have one sell something to another.
“I’m not somebody who likes to stand up and talk in class, but I really enjoyed the challenge of trying to figure out these different people and how to sell to them,” he says.
After taking classes with Bone, Crooks is considering pursuing a career or a graduate degree in marketing. For now, he is taking a break from school and swimming while he ponders his next steps.
Wherever he goes, he knows he’ll use what he’s learned at UT: putting your personal needs aside for the betterment of those around you.
“When a UT swimmer steps up on the blocks, they’re not representing themselves. They are representing UT and all their teammates,” Crooks says. “They’re representing everybody that walks through this campus every day, everybody that has any affiliation with the school, the alumni, the people who have sacrificed to get them to the blocks.
“So it’s not about you. It’s about something bigger than you.”
