And here we go. I apologize to those who look for more regular blog entries from the swim and dive team. It has been the most bizarre year of my coaching career by far to this point, and we haven’t even begun to actually compete! After a rocky false start to the fall our season was brought to a halt at the end of October as the CSB/SJU campus’s were moved to online courses for the last part of the semester. Our guys trained hard for the month and a half we had at the beginning of the year, but much of the training was lost as pools were unavailable across the entire state in Minnesota. Even if guys went home they had no opportunities to swim or workout unless they had something available at home. As much as we could we continued to stay connected through regular Zoom calls and team meetings, however uncertainty begin to make many of our guys doubt if there would be any season at all.
While the break was not what we had planned or wanted, it gave us time to plan and put together safety protocols for when things opened back up. And that we did! The second half of the season, or the actual season, begin in early January and our guys were prepared to be safe in and out of the pool and train our very best with the time that we have. Our guys came back in early January and did our “training trip” here at the Warner Palaestra. While we all remember Dorothy telling us there is no place like home, and there is deep love for the Palaestra, training trip isn’t quite the same when it’s 10 degrees outside instead of 85, and there wasn’t a beach to go sit on in-between practices. Regardless, our guys persisted and had a great training session to start up the second half of the season. It was inspiring as a coach to see guys who hadn’t touched a pool in almost two months get in and grind out some of the toughest practices of the season with only a week’s worth of training. The Johnnies stepped up big to prepare of the season they had, regardless of what they wanted.
Everything has been condensed this second half of the season. Our training really started in earnest around the second week in January with our season tentatively ending in the beginning of march, and we will be competing in three dual meets in February with a TBD taper meet at the end of the season. Many of the teams in the MIAC have decided not to participate this season due to COVID leaving us with only three teams in the conference to compete against. Regardless, we are excited to have the opportunity to stand across the pool from another team and give our best effort in each race we have a chance to swim.
What has been most amazing to me as a coach, has been the incredible will to be successful that our guys have shown over the last month. It would be easy to mail it in given that our season is cut in half and so many of our guys didn’t feel like they were going to have a chance to get into full swimming shape in the short amount of time, but they have done anything but that to this point. The drive to do their best has shown through in all our guys, and I’m excited to see how they compete in the coming weeks. Most impressive has been our seniors. Their final season has been shredded by COVID but they have pressed on. Eli Greenblat, Joseph Schwamm, and Mick Olson have all been shining examples of Johnnies willing to do whatever they can to help the team succeed.
Tomorrow will be our first meet of the season against another opponent. And while there is nothing I would like to do more than to defeat the Tommies as they leave the conference to move to Division I, I think at this point the real goal is to just compete, and to enjoy the competitive moments that we have as a team. We need to enjoy these fleeting competitive moments as a team that we enjoy for a few years in college, as they too often go underappreciated until they are gone.