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VOLUME 27, ISSUE 2 109 too hard to do both swimming and go to college there, he said. "Here (in the States), I can do both," he said. "(So) I was looking for different universities." Amaltdinov sent emails to various schools in the States, and Purdue assistant coach J. Agnew was one of the first to respond. Purdue, of course, was drawn to Amaltdinov's prowess in the pool, though he was a one-event swimmer. He was fast. The kind of fast that if Amaltdinov had already been in the States, Purdue probably wouldn't have been in the mix to get him, Ross said. "He was a game-changer," Ross said. "You knew he was going to be that good." Agnew and Amaltdinov emailed back and forth before switching to Skype to have actual conversations, and then Ross was brought in and also Skyped. The coaches loaded up Amaltdinov on information about Purdue's ac- ademics, the environment and the swimming program. The entire recruiting process was done via Skype. Amaltdinov never saw Purdue's campus or met its coaches or potential teammates in person. But Ross leveraged an advantage no other school would: He was offering a full scholarship. It was the only way Amaltdinov was going to be able to make the move work, he said, and Ross knew it. And knew it was worth it, even if the program has only 9.9 scholarships to divvy up between about 30 athletes. U.S. Olympian divers David Boudia and Steele Johnson didn't even get full rides. The entire package proved to be plenty. "I just liked what they said and just decided to come here," Amaltdinov said of choosing Purdue. A month after he committed, he clocked 2:09.27 at the Russia Cup, the eighth-fastest time in the world at that time in the 200 breaststroke. "If he would have went 2:09 (before that), there would have been a lot more people (involved in re- cruiting)," Ross said. But committing was only the first part. Amaltdinov still had to get admitted into school, which meant getting the required score on the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), designed to measure the English proficiency of non-English-speak- ing people. He fell just short. "Purdue, at the time, had an absolute number. Him getting in kind of led to the charge (for change)," Ross said. "They started a policy where they'd actually Skype and do an interview with him to make sure his English was good enough. So (The Office of) Interna- tional Students and Scholars did that. It took a lot of work. "He did not get into school until August, so we're sitting here sweating trying to get him in here. Our compliance guy took until the middle of October to get him actually fully able to race for us." It also took about four or five months, Amaltdinov said, to get adjusted to the culture shift, the food, a new coach, balancing academics and athletics, feeling comfortable enough to communicate in groups in his second language with a growing vocabulary, and, even, to the U.S. method of training. Growing up in Russia, Amaltdinov trained and swam long-course with 50-meter lengths of the pool. But in the U.S. college system, he had to adjust to short course with 25-yard lengths, meaning more turns in his 100- and 200-meter breaststroke races. "Everything was different," he said. "Different schedule. School difference. Swimming difference." But once Amaltdinov adjusted, his ability was evi- dent. RECORD-BREAKER In his first season in 2014, he broke the freshman record in the 200 breaststroke with a 1:54.33 in the prelims at the Big Ten meet. His 53.96 in the 100 breast was sixth-place all-time at Purdue. In both events, he qualified for the NCAA Championships, becoming Pur- due's first freshman swimmer to qualify for the NCAAs in an individual event since 2006. He finished 29th in the 200 breast and 42nd in the 100 in the prelims that year. He was even better last season as a sophomore. He led the team with 11 individual-event victories and was named Big Ten Swimmer-of-the-Week three times, the most for an individual in a single season in the program's history. He established Purdue and Boilermaker Aquatic Cen- ter pool records in the 200 breast — at the perfect time,