TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Records Add Pride But Mean Little

ADVERTISEMENT

By MATTHEW POSTINS Tribune correspondent

Published: September 26, 2007

After losing to East Bay on Sept. 18, the Chamberlain boys swimming team was 4-3. The Bloomingdale boys were 4-0 after a victory against Durant last week, while Newsome (5-0) and Leto (4-0) remained undefeated.

And those records, as nice as it looks for Bloomingdale, Newsome and Durant, mean absolutely nothing.
High school swimming is like golf, in that the team concept is wrapped inside an individual sport. Individual excellence typically means team success.

But when it comes to the district meets next month, the records these teams have accumulated will be meaningless.

'Everyone goes to district and you enter your team in preliminaries - four swimmers in each event and one relay per team,' Jesuit coach Bill Shaffer said. 'It's just how you perform there that counts.'

So why in the world would teams keep a win-loss record?

Bragging rights.

'I think personally it means a lot to the kids,' Sickles girls coach Fay Went said. 'At district we rarely run into the same teams. We swim against Alonso and that's the only one in our district. In theory it the record means nothing. As far as pride, it's important to them. But it doesn't indicate how well we'll do at district.'

The record is probably borne from the dual meet concept - two teams swimming against each other and accumulating points. Few teams in the area participate in tri-meets, and events like the City Relays are rare on local high school schedules.
Shaffer said there are invitational meets for swimmers, but the 10-week schedule makes the need for invitationals 'questionable.'

'We can go three weeks straight in district, regional and state and overswim a kid,' Shaffer said. 'They need training more than anything else. My goal is to get the middle-of-the-field swimmers ready for district, because they help score points to win a district title.'

LOOKING NORTH: Hillsborough freestyler Reed Shimberg has his sights set on Tufts University in Boston, a Division III school with a solid swimming program, but an outstanding pre-med program.
Shimberg probably could go to a larger school, but he's more focused on his career goal of becoming a doctor.

'Academically, you can apply to medical school after your sophomore year,' Shimberg said. 'It's Division III, but it's a good swimming program and it's not the only thing I would focus on. I want to keep swimming, but I want to have a college life. I think Tufts could be the best of both worlds for me.'

MAKING PROGRESS AT PREP: While Grace Fredlake, Matt Stumpf and Jason Khoury continue to put up some of the area's best times, first-year Tampa Prep coach Richard Wertman said the real progress is coming from his young swimmers.

There's no better example than eighth-grader Katie Carter's victory in the 500 freestyle last week vs. Plant, as she swam a career best time.

'I feel like the best thing I could say is our last meet was our best meet so far,' he said. 'We're moving in the right direction. We lost to Plant, but we had our best swims of the year. That's what it's all about.'

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT