Local swim clubs see attendance increase after Phelps

Published 10:08 pm Monday, October 20, 2008

EVERETT — When swimmer Michael Phelps was winning eight gold meals at the recent Summer Olympics in Beijing, Americans everywhere felt proud.

Similarly, what Phelps accomplished was remarkable enough to stir the Olympic dreams for a whole new generation of American swimmers, including many right here in Snohomish County.

Even beginning swimmers were inspired.

“Every time Michael Phelps hit the pool, I’d get an e-mail or a phone call from a prospect,” said Paul Bolme, an assistant coach for the StingRay Swim Club of Snohomish County.

In fact, the StingRays added 35 new swimmers during and after the Olympics, or roughly three times what the club usually takes in during the back-to-school fall recruiting period, said head coach Ben Olszewski. The club now numbers around 120 for ages 6-18.

Olszewski, who was raised in Gig Harbor and became an All-American swimmer at Central Washington University, says swimming is a wonderful activity for kids who might not be gifted at soccer, basketball or some of the other traditional youth sports.

“In fact, that’s how I got my start as an athlete, ” he said. “I was the kid with no coordination who started swimming at age 8 because of severe scoliosis, and the doctor recommended swimming. Well, I had just failed Level 4 swimming lessons for the fourth consecutive time, but my mom talked the coach into letting me on the team.

“I was a late bloomer. I didn’t get my physical strength and fill out until my college years. But my (swim club) coaches had just kept telling me, ‘Ben, if you keep working hard, your payoff will come.’ And I believed that and kept at it.”

Raw talent, it turns out, is just one element of swimming success, with hard work and discipline being equally important, if not more so. And the great thing about swimming, Olszewski said, is that every youngster can progress at his or her own pace. That’s because the StingRays and most clubs put an emphasis on what he calls “the self-improvement model.”

“It’s a system that puts a priority on individual improvement based off of time,” Olszewski explained. “You can literally be last in a race, and still improve your time and have success. And because of that, it doesn’t make any difference to the coaching staff whether a kid is national level or not. Those things are nice, but we can get just as much satisfaction out of the kids who have improved their times significantly.”

And newcomers don’t need to impress coaches by being Phelps-like their first day at the pool.

“The basic requirement,” Olszewski said, “is that you have to come out of swimming lessons and be able to make it across the pool. As long as you’re not in danger of drowning, we’ll take you.”

Yes, swimmers of all abilities can fit in with clubs like the StingRays, but those same clubs are also home to some elite athletes. The StingRays have two of the state’s best high school swimmers in Alana Pazevic, a junior at Jackson High School who is the defending Class 4A state champion in the 100-yard freestyle; and junior Garren Reichel of Snohomish High School, a two-time winner of the 4A state 100 breaststroke. Pazevic was good enough to swim at the USA Swimming Short-Course National Championships in Atlanta last fall, while Reichel competed at last summer’s U.S. Olympic Trials.

The 16-year-old Pazevic doubles up her practices in the fall between the high school team and the StringRays. By her estimate, she spends 24 or 25 hours a week at swim practices.

“My friends think I’m crazy,” she said with a laugh. “They don’t know how anybody can practice that much.”

That level of commitment might be daunting to some, but Pazevic says she enjoys “challenging” herself. To prosper in swimming, she said, “you have to be really grounded and really committed. Because if you don’t focus and commit, then you’re not going to get far.”

And when the workouts become tedious and tiring, as they sometimes do, then “you just have to think that a month from now at the big meet you’re going to do really well because you’ve been training so hard,” she said.

“I have to remind these kids continuously that they’re learning life lessons by being a swimmer that will help them in every aspect of their adult life,” Olszewski said. “And that’s not always an easy sell. But most of these kids internally want to find out how good they can be, and I think they rise to the occasion if they’re appropriately challenged.

“If it was all about beating other people, that would eventually wear them down,” he said. “But because that self-improvement model is very powerful, I think kids can keep the focus on themselves most of the time. And that’s more of a motivator than a pressure.”