Franklin sophomore Lucas Ackermann will be among the favorites in the breaststroke and individual medley at Saturday’s county meet.
Chris Williams | For the Daily Journal
Borrowing the nickname that Shaquille O’Neal bestowed on fellow basketball Hall of Famer Paul Pierce some two decades ago, Franklin swim coach Zach DeWitt calls sophomore Lucas Ackermann “The Truth.”
The rest of the Indiana swimming world will soon find out if it can handle him.
Easy to spot on a pool deck thanks to a lean 6-foot-5 frame that’s likely to still get bigger, Ackermann is a relative newcomer to the water compared to his peers but has quickly risen through the ranks. He’s been a relatively well-kept secret to this point, but his Grizzly Cub coaches and teammates don’t expect it to stay that way for long.
“I think in about six months’ time, most hardcore swimming people in Indiana will probably know his name,” DeWitt said, “and a year from now he’ll be certainly going to Junior Nationals and going to definitely have an opportunity to get second swims at Junior Nationals.
“To put that in perspective for a high school-only person, he’s going to go from a kid that was decent at a sectional level to a kid that’s going to be pretty elite at a sectional level this season, to a kid that’ll be among the state’s elite a year from now.”
Why the bold prognostications? Well, the bloodlines certainly help.
Ackermann’s father Ken, who’s still at least a couple of inches taller than his son, was a four-year letterwinner at Indiana University from 1997 to 2000, earning Academic All-Big Ten honors in his final three seasons. His mother, the former Sarah Bowman, was a state champion in the 100-yard freestyle for Center Grove in 1999 and was an All-American freestyle relay performer for IU in 2001. (For good measure, Lucas’ late grandfather Carl Ackermann was 6-foot-6 and a three-year letterwinner in men’s basketball at the University of Georgia.)
But Lucas Ackermann wasn’t thrown into the water early and bred to follow in his parents’ footsteps. He briefly tried swimming in a summer league when he was younger, he says, “but it was really cold and I didn’t like it.”
He didn’t return to the water until two years ago, when he joined Franklin Regional Swim Team as a 13-year-old and was placed in a developmental group alongside swimmers who were mostly a year or two younger than he was and not yet on a state-qualifying track. After just one season, he was thrown into the deep end with members of the high school team.
The big jump forward in intensity took a little getting used to.
“The first two weeks I was kind of like, ‘This is stupid; I want to quit,’” Ackermann said. “But then after that, it was fun.”
Enjoying almost immediate success likely helped make it so. As a freshman with just one full year of competitive swimming experience, Ackermann placed fourth in the 100-yard breaststroke and eighth in the 200 individual medley at the Center Grove Sectional in February. DeWitt expects him to qualify for the state meet in both events this winter.
For now, Ackermann sits just behind classmate Aleksandr Ries, the reigning sectional champ in the IM and the breast, but he’s closing in. Having the junior national qualifier beside him in practice every day has helped.
“When you practice with him, you get to see what a future state champion’s going to do every single time,” Ackermann said.
Saturday’s Johnson County meet comes at a point in the season when swimmers are seldom at their peaks, but Ackermann is coming in hot. At the Franklin Regional Swim Team’s Holiday Season Slam meet last weekend, he threw down lifetime bests in the 100 and 200 breast (1:00.95 and 2:12.51, respectively) as well as the 200 IM (2:02.08).
If his coaches are to be believed, that’s just a teaser of what Ackermann is capable of.
“He can be a state champion, for sure,” DeWitt said. “I have no doubt.”
Winning state is indeed a long-term goal for Ackermann. He talks about wanting to one-up his mom so he can get the best of the good-natured trash talk at home.
What will it take for him to get there between now and February 2026?
“Just catch A-Rock,” he said, referring to Ries. “That’s pretty much it.”
The fact that such a goal is even remotely reachable for someone who’s barely two years into his competitive swim career might seem wild. But with Ackermann, somehow it doesn’t feel all that far off.
“He’s got an obscene amount of talent,” DeWitt said.
IF YOU GO
Johnson County meet
At Center Grove
Today
Diving finals, 6 p.m.
Saturday
Swimming finals, 9 a.m.
