Tim Brown could make a tremendous impact on the Flames sprint corps, starting this fall and especially in the spring.
NCAA DI transfer brings speed, strength to men’s swimming sprints, relays
8/27/2026 1:04:00 PM | Men's Swimming
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Tim Brown, who started his collegiate career in Georgia before competing for NCAA Division I Ohio State and Hawaii, could help propel Flames to their first CCS National Championship.
Former NCAA Division I sprinter Tim Brown has lofty goals and dreams as the newest member of Liberty University's men's swim team — sparking the Flames to their first College Club Swimming (CCS) National Championship as a team in April 2027 and qualifying to represent Team USA at the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles in July 2028.
"My goal is to make the Olympics, and I really think I can do it training under (Head Coach) Heath Grishaw," said Brown, 22. "As a sprinter, I want just one more opportunity to prove myself. I haven't really done that yet, and I am excited to see what I can do."
Brown started his career at Thomas (Ga.) University's NAIA program for the 2023-24 seasons before spending his junior year at Ohio State, where he recorded most of his personal best times, and his senior season at the University of Hawaii, both NCAA DI teams. He swam with five U.S. Olympians at Ohio State and one at Hawaii, where he did not receive the level of training he was looking for, leading him to transfer.
He was inspired by his oldest brother, Mitchell Brown — who swam for one season at Liberty in 2021 before graduating with his B.S. in Aeronautics and is now training in Oklahoma to be a fighter pilot for the U.S. Air National Guard — to complete his undergraduate career with the Flames.
Grishaw said Brown has the potential to break all five of Matthew Davidson's individual program standards, and to contribute to bettering five more relay team records Davidson was a part of setting in his five-year Flames career that featured five individual gold medals at nationals.
Brown excels in the sprint freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly events.
"We are really excited for what Tim can bring," Grishaw said. "He will be a huge help, a game changer in our sprint freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly events and relays. He is probably the first recruit or transfer post-Matt Davidson era who has a chance to break his records — in the 50, 100, and 200 freestyle and 50 and 100 backstroke."
He said Brown has the opportunity to follow in the wake of Walker Davis, a former NCAA DI swimmer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Davis led the Tar Heels' club swim team to its second-place team showing (one spot higher than Liberty and behind only a Cal Poly team stacked with 17 of its former NCAA DI swimmers) at the CCS National Championships last year in nearby Greensboro, N.C.
"He crushed it and broke a ton of records, finishing first in everything he swam," Grishaw said of Davis. "He was influential in helping UNC finish second at nationals. Seeing Tim come our way, he is going to be a great addition for us, and he could have the same type of impact here."
He said Brown — who says relays are his favorite events in swimming due to the bonds formed between teammates — will help fill the void left by the graduation of team captains Whitman Brown (no relation) and Dillon Delaney.
"He'll add the missing piece to our relays with Whit and Dillon, who are two really good sprint freestylers, leaving," Grishaw said. "He'll kind of make up the difference and help us, recruiting-wise. He's coming in as a senior, and he is out of NCAA eligibility. If he decides he wants to train more and swim more, he might consider a master's degree."
After studying sport management at Ohio State and marketing at Hawaii, Brown plans to complete a B.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies at Liberty.
"I'm trying to head back onto the business track of sport management," he said. "I'll take school seriously this year because I'm running out of time. In the past my major's been in swimming, and I've loved learning from and hanging out with Olympians, some who have an unbelievable work ethic and some who don't make it to morning practices."
Brown, who moved more than a dozen times before he graduated from Trinity Christian School in Sharpsburg, Ga., due to his father being a pilot in the Air Force, currently calls Tallahassee, Fla., home.
"I am used to it, but I'm not a big fan of moving all the time and losing all my friends and having to gain new ones," he said. "There is something about living in a small town."
Brown is looking forward to assimilating quickly into the culture at Liberty and continuing to lead by example through hard work, as he has at previous programs. While he has no interest in becoming a team captain, Brown hopes to be a motivator and encourage teammates to invest in the program.
"I can spot a good heart instantly and can get a lot more out of people who are borderline competitive by chirping, getting them excited to race another day," he said. "I find out what makes a person tick, and I get people to practice. I'll get the attendance at practices to near 100 percent for the people who understand the goal, which is winning a national championship."
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