“It’s not about winning”—Even When You’re on the Winning Teams
Grace Fehrnstrom swims butterfly at Wednesday’s meet against Campolindo.
On April 19, the varsity swim team chant- ed their cheers to get pumped before their meet against Northgate. The fastest swimmers lined up at their blocks for their first event and the pool waves settled before the start. When the starting buzzer sounded, the first event—of 42 that night—has begun. Teammates, friends, and parents lined up at the end of each swimmer’s lane pounding the ground and cheering them on.
The time between events gives enough time for swimmers to huddle in circles on their towels, snack on treats, relaxing with their friends before their next event. Coaches give high fives and tips for each swimmer.
As the meet wore on, swimmers became visibly tired, yet the energy and support of speculators didn’t die. A coach yelled at swimmers, “Keep kicking! Keep kicking!”
Two hours late, parents behind the blocks with stopwatches recorded their last event. Swimmers to start pulling in the tarps over the pool and take out the lanes ropes. Another meet comes to an end.
Senior Madi Cragin has been swimming for Las Lomas for all four years and has had new coaches every year.
“The team dynamic changes every year, but you’re with the same people, so especially the people who you swim with in your lane you get really close with,” said Cragin. “At the beginning of each season you kind of just have to figure out what your coach wants from you, whether it’s solely based off times or whether it’s more commitment to the team.”
Senior Madison Eckstein said that she likes when coaches work hard to relate to their swimmers. “I’ve made deeper connections with the coaches this year, just because I think varsity is a smaller team and I think they have more time to get to know you, so that’s helpful.”
Eckstein said that swimming on varsity requires a huge time commitment because coaches expect swimmer to show up every day. In addition, “sets are generally harder, the times are generally faster for the sets. more distance. At the beginning of the year we were swimming up to two miles a day.”
Swimming all four years has given Cragin much wisdom, some life lessons, and good memories.
“When I joined swim team, I didn’t know how to do a dive. I would belly flop off the blocks. And my first tryouts we were supposed to do an eight-lap race and I ended up only doing six laps because I miscounted. I was still last because I got lapped like three times and like I miscounted. It was really bad, it hurt really bad.”
While swim team has been time consuming and a huge commitment, the swimmers find joy in their sport still.
Eckstein said, “I feel like swimming takes a lot of my energy. I’m tired all the time. Then I also feel like if I’m having a bad day I can get in the pool and turn that around and kind of work out my problems.”
“It’s a really easy way to forget about your problems because you’re solely focused on making the sets and it’s like that repetitive motion. Your mind kind of goes blank,” said Cragin.
Swimming is a unique team that relies on individual performance. “It’s not really about winning for swimming, it’s mostly just individual times,” Eckstein said.
“You’re not really competing against other swimmers. You’re competing against your own times”said Cragin. “It’s fun. I like it cause I get to see myself improve. Self improvement. I couldn’t do a flip turn and now I can!”
