In honor of Valentine’s Day, the Sports section is continuing a tradition of inquiring what it is like for student-athlete couples to balance the athletic, relationship, and academic scene at Wesleyan.
Sadie Woodruff ’26 is a captain and breaststroker on the women’s swim and dive team and Daniel Isman ’26 is a captain and breaststroker on the men’s swim and dive team. The two have played critical roles in the success of Wesleyan Swim and Dive over their four years here. The Argus recently sat down with both of them (separately) to discuss their first impressions of one another and favorite memories of cheering each other on and to reflect on how they’ve grown as athletes and leaders.
The Argus: When did you guys first meet and what was your first impression of each other?
Sadie Woodruff: We had a freshman dinner right before school [started] at the Middletown Inn. I feel like I don’t really remember [my first impression of him]. It was so overwhelming, and there were so many people that were new to me. I don’t remember any of the boys, except I remember Zack [O’Connor ’26], one of the other boys, who was wearing pink pants, and I thought, “That’s funny.”
Dan Isman: We first met senior year of high school at WesFest, very briefly, which would have been spring 2022. But we first met for real and first started getting to know each other at the beginning of freshman year—so, like, end of August, beginning of September, 2022. I thought Sadie was very cool. I just felt that I could tell whenever I saw her that she was herself, and I also just thought she was really kind. Even when we were first getting to know each other, it was just very clear that she always considered other people’s feelings.
A: When did you guys first hang out and get together?
SW: The first time we hung out was probably, gosh, I don’t remember. Okay, freshman year, one of the first nights, Devayan [Roychoudhury ’26], who was one of the other boys in our grade, [got] locked out of his room, and his roommate was asleep and he was worried that his roommate was going to be mad at him if he woke him up. So Dev was crying to a few of the girls and being like, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Like, John’s literally going to kill me.” I didn’t know any of the boys really, but I knew Dan seemed reliable, so I Instagram messaged him, like “Come get your boy, he’s in Summies, don’t know what to do with him.” He came and looked all disheveled. He just had a fight with his girlfriend, and it was his birthday the next day. He was going through it.
[Dan] had figured stuff out with Dev, but that was the first time I remember hanging out with him. We didn’t get together until the end of freshman year. He broke up with his girlfriend over Spring Break. We hung out a lot, like we were in a group [together]. He told me in a really weird way that he liked me. His sister [Kelsey Isman ’23] used to be on the team, and I think his text to me was “Kelsey told me that Elle told her that I had a crush on you, and I didn’t tell her that. But she’s not totally wrong.” I remember I was like, I don’t really know what that means, but we talked about it, and I liked him too, but I didn’t want to start anything before we left for the summer. So we were exclusive, but not official, which all my friends thought was so funny. Then, we actually got together in September of our sophomore year.
DI: We hung out as friends a lot in the first semester of college, but we first started talking towards the end of freshman year, like May, basically, right before we went home for the summer, and then we officially got together in the beginning of sophomore year in September.
A: Do you have any favorite memories of watching each other swim/being on the team together?
SW: Even though we weren’t together freshman year, his NESCACs was here, and he just had such a great meet, and I feel like I remember his 200 Breast exceeding expectations and beating people he didn’t think he was gonna be close to, and that was really fun. But, I also got to go to his sophomore year NESCACs, which was at Colby, and hang out with his family. He didn’t have as good of a meet, but it was really fun to watch with his dad who times all of his races on his phone. So, that was cool.
DI: Yes, I think I have a lot of good memories of cheering behind her lane and also her cheering behind my lane. I think, ironically enough, one of my favorite memories of watching her swim was actually women’s NESCACs sophomore year through a screen—just because she had a really, really good 200 IM out of nowhere, and it was super exciting to watch her do so well. But I think, aside from that, I really like watching her on relays. At the senior meet, she had a super fast split and that was super fun to watch. Just general memories on the team—hanging out with her at [the] training trip is always super fun. I think particularly sophomore year training trip, we were still relatively early in our relationship, and I think that was probably my favorite memory of hanging out with Sadie in a team setting.
A: How is it being together, being on the same team, and swimming the same events?
SW: When we first started on the team, there [were] like, four swim couples, at least. There was a lot of swim-cest. But our sophomore year, when we actually started dating, it trickled down to like three of us, and then there was two, and then there was one. I feel like as the numbers got fewer it got weirder that we were together because people would talk about the men’s team and be like, “Oh, they’re all weird and short.” And I’d be like “…Yeah!” You know, it’s been weird, but this year has been really good. I feel like it’s been more like a power couple. Some people didn’t even know we were dating. Swimming the same events—I think it’s fun to swim with him because he’s so hardworking. I would get really annoyed if I was dating someone and I swam the same event as them and they were slacking off.
DI: Both being captains, I think it’s actually really good for us because I think we keep each other in check a little bit. There’s obviously a lot of decision making we have to do as captains and a lot of planning we have to do, and I think it’s really easy to like, bounce ideas off each other, especially with me being the only captain on the men’s team. Having Sadie to always bounce ideas off of and if I’m unsure about something, being like “what do you think of this?” It’s actually been a really good thing for our relationship and our success as captains. Swimming the same events, I don’t really think about that as much because, obviously we’re not competing against each other. I think it’s nice to be able to help each other with race strategies and stuff.
A: How has it been watching one another grow as an athlete and as a person?
SW: I think it’s been really cool to see Dan’s progression from who he was as a freshman to where he is now. He’s had a lot of personal growth in just believing in himself and being more confident in who he is. It’s been really cool to be with him through some of the struggles that made him who he is today. We had a really hard time sophomore year in our living situation—people saying things about our relationship and throwing shade at us, like anywhere we went and [people] were trying to exclude us from things. It was really hard for both of us, but especially him, to really change who a lot of his friends were and deal with friend breakups, in a way. I just feel like the Dan who came to Wesleyan couldn’t have dealt really well with being the only senior man on the men’s team, but I feel like he’s done a very good job in corralling a lot of the younger boys.
DI: It’s been really great. I look back on the people we were freshman year, and I think it’s been really cool to watch Sadie grow into the leader that she is. When I first met her, she was definitely more of a shy, reserved person. She stepped out of her comfort zone a little bit, into this leadership role, and she’s done a really, really awesome job. I like to think that, you know, I’ve helped her with that. She’s also helped me kind of grow into the leader that I am. We’ve definitely both changed a lot since freshman year. I think [it was] mostly for the better. Like we haven’t changed who we are, but we’ve become better leaders and more mature, and I think that we’ve helped each other do that.
Alessandra Woo can be reached at aawoo@wesleyan.edu.
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