There’s no sport quite like competitive swimming, at least in terms of training. Athletes get up at the crack of dawn to jump in the pool and push their entire bodies to the limit, all in the name of shaving off a few seconds — or 10ths of seconds — from their times.
There are plenty of pools around town in which to practice, or to at least swim laps in to stay conditioned. With that said, what is it about Blue Wave Swimming that has Plant City-area kids driving all the way out to Brandon?
There’s more than one answer. But, it all comes back to the program itself, and who is running the show.
Head coach Ron Turner, who took over the program 14 months ago, runs a tight ship at the aquatic complex. But, that’s precisely what the kids want.
“These practices are way different than what we would do at a high school practice,” Gigi Gibbs says. “Ron makes sure that we’re prepared for states, so that’s our main goal at the end of the day — to be ready to go out there and kill it, to be ready for college.”
Gibbs, an incoming senior at Strawberry Crest High, is joined by six other Strawberry Crest classmates — two of whom have just graduated — at every practice. They are joined by several swimmers from Durant High School, who also are sold on Turner’s competitive drive.
“I’m here to try to rebuild (the program) and get us back to that level of being perennially competitive with other teams across the country,” Turner says.
And, he knows how to do it. Turner has the credentials that serious swimmers, including Gibbs and her classmates, seek.
STORIED HISTORY
Long before Turner took over, Blue Wave was well-known for producing successful swimmers in its 50 years of existence. They’ve had perennial success on an Olympic level.
“Through the program, we’ve had an Olympian in every Olympics since 1968,” he says.
That includes American swimmer and Durant alum Brooke Bennett, who won one gold medal in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and two in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. At Athens in 2004, they sent American Maritza Correia — who won a silver medal with the 4×100 relay team. Golda Marcus competed for El Salvador at Beijing in 2008, and diver Chris Colwill — now the head of Blue Wave’s diving program — won gold at London two years ago.
Turner has some experience working with Olympians, coaching six in some capacity. He’s worked most closely with Charlie Houchin, who won gold in the 2012 800-meter free relay. Turner also has worked with the U.S. National Team, serving as an assistant coach at the 2007 Pan-Am Games.
Turner’s experience with colleges also has helped some of his older swimmers.
“Ron’s had experience coaching colleges before, so he’s helped us a lot with what to expect once we get to college,” Cole Wisecarver says. “What to expect from practices, what to expect from the coaches, as to what they’ll do with us, stuff like that. It helps a lot.”
Wisecarver graduated recently from Strawberry Crest with teammate Zach Kitzis, and both are attending Florida Atlantic University in the fall.
Even for swimmers who don’t have college plans in their immediate future, the seriousness of the program helps bring swimmers in — and keeps them coming back.
PROVING GROUND
There’s Niko Milosavljevic, who will be a sophomore at Durant in the fall. He had spent some time with the Blue Wave program before leaving two years ago, only to join Durant’s team as a freshman. That experience, though, ended up bringing him back to Brandon.
“I missed the team environment,” he says. “I liked the camaraderie — everyone was cheering for each other and they actually, genuinely care. They weren’t fake about it.”
After the Durant season ended, Milosavljevic decided to leave the sport for some time. Three weeks ago, he came back to Blue Wave to see if he still had the will to compete. High school swimming, he says, wasn’t serious enough for him. He wanted to work hard year-round to prove to others — and himself — that he’s got talent.
“I want to prove to the world that I’m a good swimmer, and I’ve got to prove that to myself,” Milosavljevic says. “It seems like swimming’s my outlet. With bad stuff happening, I get to escape here and swim. It’s the only consistent thing in my life.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
DOES SHAVING MATTER?
To nearly all swimmers, shaving is crucial to one’s success. If there’s even so much as one hair anywhere below the neck, it’s got to go. Aerodynamics, you know?
“When you’re suited up and you’re hairless everywhere, you’ve been rested, your whole mindset is completely different,” Gigi Gibbs says. “You’re like, ‘This is it.’ And, ‘I’m gonna kill it.’ And that’s kind of how we are at big meets.”
But, swimmers don’t always have time to shave their entire bodies. And, when they don’t, they can’t help but think about it. At last weekend’s Southern Zone South Sectional meet in Orlando, many of the Blue Wave swimmers didn’t shave — and, they’ve said it affected their times.
“It was a little tough, though, because everyone at the meet was shaved and tapered,” Zach Kitzis says. “They were ready to go all-out. We weren’t shaved or tapered. It was a weird feeling. We kind of had to race from the back of all of our heats, so we kind of had to deal with that mindset, also.”
Hearing the swimmers describe it, it sounds more like a psychological thing than a physical one. After all, body hair is very fine — it’s not likely to make a huge impact on one’s time, if at all.