At the 2025 Ivy League Swim and Dive Championship, sophomore Josh Toothman swam a 19.77 in the preliminary round of the 50-yard freestyle. In the final round, he tied that time exactly.
At the time, the school record for the fastest 50-free was 19.67, swum by Jack Brenneman ’18 in 2016. Toothman had one last chance in the 2025 Championship to capture the record for himself and become, as men’s head swim coach Wes Newman ’09 would say, “the fastest Cornellian in water ever.”
“‘If I have to do it, I only have now to do it,’” Toothman said. “So, I got up there and just went for it and I ended up getting it.”
Toothman swam a 19.63 split in the 200-yard freestyle relay, beating Brenneman’s record by .04 seconds. He has held the 50-yard freestyle record ever since and recently bested it in the 2026 iteration of the Ivy League Championships, lowering the time to beat to 19.45.
Early Days
Toothman, a Parma, Ohio native, has been in the pool almost as long as he’s been able to walk, having first experienced it when he was “three or four years old.” While his parents made him try other sports, Toothman always came back to the pool.
“One day, [my parents] brought me to the pool,” Toothman said. “I just loved the pool. I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to get out.”
According to Toothman, his high school coach Eric Dennis of St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland, Ohio, played a key role in motivating him to succeed.
“[Coach Dennis] has worked with me since I was about ten or eleven years old,” Toothman said. “He was a really big role model in how I swim and everything about the foundation [of my] work ethic.”
Toothman’s older brother, Zach Toothman, was recruited to swim for Case Western Reserve University in 2021 and swam for the team all four years of his education.
When Josh was a freshman in high school, Zach was a senior. Josh maintains that Zach was always an impactful person during a tough transition for many: middle school to high school.
“[Zach] was a big role model,” Josh said. “He was a nice foundation for getting into high school and getting into high school swimming.”
By Josh’s junior year, it became increasingly apparent that he would follow the footsteps of his brother and swim at the collegiate level. The ‘‘Speedo Winter Junior Championship East’’ meet only exacerbated that notion.
“I started talking to college coaches there,” Josh said. “It really got me thinking about how I could take [swimming] to the next level.”
When on the recruiting trail, Josh visited Columbia University and had offers from Johns Hopkins University and many other schools. However, no place felt like Cornell University. Josh said that the school’s “familial” environment was a key factor in deciding to commit to the Red.
“[Nowhere] else felt like a true family except here,” Josh said. “Every meal that I ate [during my recruiting visit], the whole entire team tried to be at that meal. At other schools, a lot of people just did not come as much… I could really tell how close this team was.”
Nautical Excellence
Ever since coming to Cornell, Josh has acquitted himself commendably in the water. In December 2024, he broke 20 seconds in the 50-free competition for the first time, a moment he called “really special.”
At the 2025 Ivy League Championships, he broke the Red’s 50-free record, but according to Josh, the more surprising result was his performance in the 100-yard backstroke.
“I have never really focused on backstroke in practice,” Josh said. “I went in there, not expecting much, [but] I ended up dropping two and a half seconds [from my previous time] and winning the C Final. I would have placed in the B Final had I gone faster in the preliminary round.”
Josh also indicated via email that he achieved the Olympic Trial qualifying standard, calling it a “huge moment.”
Moving to the 2025-26 season, Josh always saw himself breaking his own record.
“I think my goal every year is just to consistently drop time,” Josh said. “I definitely saw myself breaking the record again and going fast in all my other events.”
At the 2026 Ivy League Championship, despite the strobe lights, introductory music and deafening crowd noise, Josh drowns all that out come race time. When asked what he was thinking on the starting block of his recent record-breaking race, he said he likes to keep things simple.
“[I always think] just beat the guy next to me,” Josh said. “As long as I can beat the guy next to me, I have a really good chance of going faster, if not breaking my own record… If I can put my hand on the wall first, I know it’s going to be a good time.”
When Josh finished his record-breaking race, he initially didn’t even realize he broke it.
“The scoreboard was messed up for that race,” Josh said. “Once I realized [I broke my record], I was pretty happy about that.”
Josh added that many alumni swimmers congratulated him for the result.
“A lot of the senior alumni from last year contacted me, congratulating me and saying it was a great swim,” Josh said. “It was great to hear from them again.”
Josh says that despite his distinction as the “fastest Cornellian in water ever,” he’s not letting complacency overtake him. Nevertheless, he wears the honor with pride.
“It’s pretty great [to hold the honor],” Josh said. “I would definitely [say that I’m] always striving to get faster. Sometimes you don’t even realize it, that it actually hit.”
