SOUTH BEND ― Backpack over a shoulder, water bottle at the ready and stressing over shoehorning in some time somewhere to do laundry, Notre Dame sophomore Carli Cronk looks like just another Notre Dame sophomore on campus this November morning.
It’s only after she’s done with classes, done chatting with classmates, done tapping texts to family back home in Texas or friends scattered around the world that she turns from Notre Dame student to Notre Dame student-athlete.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementEverything about the normalness of Cronk’s world changes when she enters Rolfs Aquatics Center at the back of the Joyce Center. When she steps out on deck in her swimsuit. When she pulls on her swim cap. When she adjusts her goggles and dives into the water, not an easy nor enviable task especially during those early-morning workouts, Cronk goes from ordinary to extraordinary.
Kind of. Sort of. Really.
When Cronk arrived on campus in the fall of 2024, she sought solace in the pool. The athletics arena has always been a sanctuary from as far back as 4 years old back home in San Antonio when she loved soccer and she loved to swim and she loved to compete.
It brought her a sense of belonging in the world.
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Compete? Cronk did that from the jump at Notre Dame. In her first meet as a freshman, Cronk earned first-place finishes in the 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle. By the time her first year was finished, she had four school records. That included the longest-standing mark in program history – the 400 IM, which had stood since 2014.
She wasn’t just fast. She wasn’t just focused. She was elite.
That thought made Cronk a bit uncomfortable. It long has. Her? Fast? Good? Come on. She has thought that way ever since she was 12 and decided to drop soccer to swim. She would focus on one sport, but would she really be that good at one sport?
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“I did not think I was fast,” Cronk said. “I still don’t. I know that sounds bad, but I see my friends and I’m like, ‘Wow, they’re really fast.’ To see myself at this level is something I thought I’d never see.”
The achievements just kept coming. Junior nationals one year, which for Cronk was such a summit that she jumped around to celebrate. The next summer, Olympic trials. All the way to her freshman year at Notre Dame when she was named most valuable player (swimmer).
She kept setting a high bar, kept meeting it, then kept raising it.
“It took me not setting standards or expectations for myself,” she said. “When I set expectations, I break down. I just go out there and have fun.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAlways fun. Cronk’s seldom in Rolfs without sharing a smile or a laugh with a teammate. She’s seemingly always in the moment and enjoying the moment following the philosophy of first-year head coach Mike Norment - “a happy swimmer is a fast swimmer.”
“She has a great sense of humor,” Norment said. “She’s so fun to be around that she changes everyone around her.”
Carli Cronk is happy.
Carli Cronk is fast. Carli Cronk is deaf.
When it's time for Notre Dame sophomore Carli Cronk to swim, it's just her voice in her head and the water.∎∎∎
In the water and alone in her lane, Cronk is in her own world. She cannot hear teammates on deck yelling for her to go faster. She cannot hear her coach or the crowd or the buzzer that buzzes to signal a start. She can see Norment relaying her times in sign language, but it’s just her and the water and one voice – hers - in her head.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“It’s me telling myself to go faster,” Cronk said. “You just have to have that drive.”
Cronk has that drive to go faster. To overcome the challenge of not being able to hear in a way that many take for granted. She was born with sensorineural hearing loss, which affects the auditory nerve’s ability to send information from the inner ear to the brain.
Away from the pool, on campus, in class, out in the real world, Cronk relies on hearing aids and lip reading to understand her world. She knows sign language but prefers verbal communication.
She prefers to talk. Prefers to laugh. Loves to laugh. With others, and sometimes, at herself.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementEveryone is different in their own ways. Some of us may have had as many as 17 myringotomy procedures (ear tubes) as children to decrease fluid buildup/infections in the ear. Others see the world through glasses or contacts. Some are allergic to milk or snore freight-train loud or suffer from rheumatoid arthritis. That is our normal.
Cronk is deaf. That is her normal.
She first realized that she was different in her own way while playing soccer back home with her best friend, Sally Mills, a sophomore soccer player at the University of Colorado/Colorado Springs. They formed a fast and forever friendship.
“I’ve always known that she could hear and I couldn’t,” Cronk said. “Having her by my side all the time, it was like, ‘Yeah, I’m different, but I can do what she can do.’ She always pushed me to be good.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBe good and not box herself in by boundaries. Cronk doesn’t let them define her in the pool or on campus. Every day of class as a business analytics major is a challenge, but every day for many is a challenge. This is Cronk’s.
She embraces it. All of it.
“She’s just such a good person,” Norment said, “that when you meet her for the first time, you want to fight like hell for her.”
In class, Cronk wears a cool pair of real time captioning glasses. When she hears a professor speaking but cannot read his lips, the glasses transcribe the speech in live time on the inside of the lenses. Cronk reads and follows along. Most of the time.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“Sometimes I’ll miss what my professor is saying,” she said. “I’ve had that my whole life. I know how to work around it.”
She’ll ask a classmate, hey, what was that? Same for group settings in the dining hall or at an off campus gathering where more people mean more chances of Cronk not getting what someone said about something.
“I may miss a lot of things where they’ll be talking really fast and I can’t keep up,” Cronk said. “It’s a lot of learning how to apply yourself, like, ‘Hey, I’m deaf. Can you help? Can you tell me what they said?’
“It’s kind of normal at this point.”
Same for college life. Cronk goes to class. She goes to practice. She goes to the dorm rooms and apartments and houses of teammates to hang out and study and laugh and talk. She attends Irish football games, though Cronk admitted that she lasted only to halftime of the Navy night game when it rained and it snowed and the cold was just too unbearable for a Texan to make it through.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementCronk chose Notre Dame to get away from her comfort zone. Home for Cronk is everything. Her parents. Her three siblings, who are all older and still live in the state. Her two dogs. It’s a world she plans to return to after graduation. Until then, Northern Indiana is home, something she still cannot comprehend with changing seasons, falling leaves and weather that seems to shift almost daily.
"It’s fun being here (but) to experience something so far from home without my family is hard,” Cronk said. “It’s also like, wow, I can do this. I can live on my own and experience something I’ve never experienced.”
Notre Dame sophomore Carli Cronk has won and won a lot during her participation in the Deaflympics.∎∎∎
Thanksgiving week found Cronk far from home and from Notre Dame. Two days after sharing her story, Cronk was on a plane from South Bend that would take her to Atlanta, then to Los Angeles and then on to Tokyo for the 2025 Deaflympics.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIn that arena, Cronk is like Katie Ledecky – a winning wonder woman. At the 2022 Deaflympics in Brazil, Cronk won 12 gold medals. She owns seven deaf swimming world records and 26 deaf swimming American records.
During her two weeks in Japan – November 15 to November 29 – Cronk planned to focus on everything but her swims. Her times didn’t matter. Her finishes didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except spending time with her family and fellow Deaflympics friends.
This is Cronk’s final Deaflympics, so it’s about everything but swimming and competing and winning, though she likely will do plenty of that before returning to Notre Dame.
“I,” she said, “just want to take it all in.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThat means reconnecting with friends that she hasn’t seen since 2022. Two days before leaving for the Far East, Cronk traded texts with a fellow swimmer from the United Kingdom. The core of the exchange was funny – don't forget to bring the UNO cards.
In 2022, Cronk was part of a core group of Deaflympians from Australia, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. that sat in the athletes’ hotel and played UNO for hours. In one game, one of her friends had to draw 14 cards. They still laugh about that one.
“A card game can bring all countries together,” Cronk said.
That’s Cronk. Going fast in the water is important, but not as important as building bonds. Or being a good friend. Being present.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“She’s an incredible swimmer, but I’ll always say that she’s more impressive as a person,” Norment said. “She’s phenomenal.”
Post-Tokyo, Cronk will turn her attention to the rest of her sophomore season at Notre Dame. Eventually, she’ll focus on Los Angeles and a possible roster spot on the 2028 U.S. Olympic team.
Only a few days remain with her Deaflympics friends and teammates. There might be some she never sees again. That’s hard.
Cronk had no idea how she will feel after her last race in Japan, but knew what she’d be like the last time on the block. Nervous. Always. Even all these years and all those medals, Cronk still gets nervous as she readies her mind and body to dive in and go.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“I’ll always be nervous,” she said. “The nerves give you a boost of energy. The thought of racing makes me nervous because I want to do well.”
She does well. In academics. In athletics. In life.
For Carli Cronk, it’s good. All good.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame sophomore Carli Cronk enjoys swim success beyond her dreams
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