Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Men's Swimming and Diving Blog - Erik Heinemann
2/13/2013 7:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
Feb. 13, 2013
Championship season is something that every athlete lives for, whether it is for your high school state championship, college championships or the Olympics, any athlete that has put the time and work in knows that now is the chance to show everyone it has paid off.
For swimming, championship season is a special time of year. In the middle of the season we swim every meet sore and exhausted, but for championships we get to taper. Taper is a very special word for certain athletes, swimmers in particular. Taper means shorter practices, no more lifting, and most importantly, no longer having to set an alarm for 5:30 a.m. three times a week. For the Bucknell Swimming and Diving team, championships consist of two meets, Patriots and ECACs. These meets are the culmination of 180 days of tough training and meets starting back in August. The Bucknell Invitational marks the mid point of the season in November where we get a chance to see where we are in the “process” as our coach Dan Schinnerer calls it. The team gets to rest for a couple days for this meet so we were not at our maximum potential. Following this three day meet the team got to travel to Florida for the second year in a row for a weeklong training trip. While down in Florida, the team seemed more focused on training hard than it had been all year. January and February found us in a tough part of the season with some of our biggest and most competitive dual meets of the year. After a few let downs to start out the new calendar year, the team was able to refocus itself and show more drive and determination than I had seen since I had the good fortune of coming to Bucknell.
Now as the 'process' is winding down with only days left in the season and some in their career, the team has become more united and focused than it was two weeks ago. Everyone has worked hard in and out of the pool and done a great job of supporting one another. Now we finally get the chance to see what we can do and frankly, I cannot wait. This time of year is also very emotional for the seniors on the team because this is the last time most of them will ever suit up for a race. Some seniors would just look at championships as just one more obstacle in their way before they are free from the grind of swimming, but not this class. As we have gotten closer and closer to the end of the season I have never seen a group of more focused and determined individuals than the seniors on the team. Everyday they come into practice fired up and ready to work and stay positive no matter how tired or sore they are. Everyday they are pushing not just themselves, but everyone else around them in the pool too with words of encouragement. If their practice finishes earlier than another group, they go over and cheer that group on until they have finished. Things like this have brought the team closer and closer together throughout the year and this positive reinforcement has really rubbed off on the rest of the team and you can see it when we gather for a team huddle after every practice to discuss something positive that happened that day. Our team atmosphere has been the most positive one I have ever seen and cannot wait to see how well we will support one another especially at Patriots in our home pool. This team spirit is not just from current members of the team, but from alumni as well. Last year they showed up in force and let the whole pool know that Bucknell was and will be the loudest team on deck and in the stands. With home field advantage I can only imagine the turnout we will experience after seeing so many alumni last year at the Naval Academy show up to support our team when we needed it most.
With our team goals that we made back in September still fresh in our minds I am confident to say that our team this year is more ready than it every has been and I know that we will show up ready to race and to prove to everyone what we are capable of at Patriots and ECACs.
