Connor Craig ’25 has been making waves in the pool for most of his life. At Wabash, his ripples reach far beyond the water.
Fifteen years after his first meet, Connor Craig ’25 swam his last meet with the same coach on the pool deck as the one who had coached him at the beginning.
“I was swimming for a summer league team, and I hated it,” Craig says. “My coach (Will Bernhardt) came over and talked to me. He said, ‘Just go have fun. Pretend like a shark is chasing you and go as fast as you can.’ I ended up winning the 25-meter backstroke by the end of the season.
“Coach Will is my last-ever swim coach,” he continues. “It’s full circle. I get a little emotional thinking about it because I’m at the end of the journey with the guy who helped me start in the first place.”
Craig is the first of Bernhardt’s club swimmers to matriculate to Wabash since Bernhardt took over as Wabash’s head coach in 2018.
“When I found out his grandfather, Richard Helm ’67, is a Wabash alum, I thought, ‘This is meant to be,’” Bernhardt says. “168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 started this journey together—the little boy on the summer league team—and now we have developed a relationship through the recruiting process that has amplified over our four years together at Wabash. It’s truly special. You don’t get to do that often, or for a lot of coaches ever.”
Craig appreciates the extra benefits of being a student-athlete.
“Swim has not only helped me be a good athlete, but it’s also helped with work ethic and how I handle every single day and balancing everything else I’ve got going on,” he says. “Overall, what I’ve gotten out of it is being a better person and knowing how to go about being busy but not letting it overtake me.”
Craig struggled as a freshman to meet his own expectations and deal with feelings of disappointing his teammates. Rather than see teammates face similar feelings alone, he came up with a plan to make sure everyone on the squad had someone they could talk to. Now, three years later, it’s fully ingrained into the team structure.
The team implemented a mentorship program that pairs incoming freshmen with upperclassmen to foster open communication, provide support, and build stronger bonds. This initiative, inspired by Craig’s fraternity experiences, aims to help teammates navigate academic, personal, and athletic challenges by encouraging honest conversations and consistent peer support.
“Our team culture right now is phenomenal,” says Bernhardt. “168体育平台下载_足球即时比分-注册|官网 encourage our upperclassmen to connect outside of the pool where they can actually talk about life and about school.”
Retention rates and a sense of belonging have improved team-wide. The program promotes mutual care, with upperclassmen gaining leadership experience and underclassmen feeling more supported. The deepened connections have improved the team’s social fabric.
“You see teammates have more conversations about the real stuff,” Craig says. “I could be in the middle of warm-up, and I’ll talk to a teammate that I haven’t touched base with in a while. And if I find out he’s struggling, it’s like, ‘How can I help you? Do you want to hang out after practice?’ Establishing that sense of care amongst teammates has really been important.”
It wouldn’t be surprising that a sprinter on the swim team creates ripples, but in Craig’s case, those ripples are impressive and far-reaching. He served as academic chair of Delta Tau Delta, is a brother of the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies, and is a chemistry peer tutor for the Quantitative Skills Center. In addition, as vice president of the Sphinx Club, he was part of the leadership team that revamped Homecoming, including a streamlined Chapel Sing.
“Giving back to this community has been something that I’ve focused on because I feel something in my heart and in my gut to constantly make this a better place,” says the biology major and Spanish and chemistry minor. “I work to continually improve our sense of community.”
Anne Bost, associate teaching professor of biology, has taught Craig in several courses, beginning with freshman tutorial, and has seen the growth in him throughout his Wabash career.
“His social ability is strong and mirrors his scientific ability,” says Bost. “Connor can see things that seem completely unrelated, put them together, spin the prism, and see what the goal is. He’s got ears to the ground in a lot of different areas so he can find the heartbeat of the problem and then put the pieces together to make a difference.”
As his Wabash career winds down, Craig has plenty of goals ahead of him. He’s aiming for medical school and, perhaps, a pathway to a career in national or international public health. He wants to learn how to make bigger change in the world. All that lies ahead is the work.
“He’s a gamer,” says Bernhardt. “I wouldn’t bet against him. He always delivers.”
One thing is certain. He will continue to participate in memorable conversations.
“I’m going to be a student for the rest of my life,” Craig says. “You can put your nose in a book all you want, but you’re not going to learn unless you’re asking people questions and working with them. There’s something quite interesting about a conversation, especially in the many ways it can beneficially impact others’ days, or even lives. I make it my goal to always have fulfilling interactions with others whenever I can.”