With music playing and friends catching up, the Alumni Swim Meet held at Anderson Aquatics Center on Saturday, Oct. 14 felt more like a family reunion than a competitive athletic event. The final scores — 142 points for the alumni and 138 points for the current team — was announced as an afterthought.
Because it was a friendly match, some swimmers had fun with the warm-ups. For one, a swimmer would throw a frisbee and another would attempt to catch it while jumping into the pool, some times off the diving board.
“It’s just a good time,” alumnus Gabby Lindblad said. “There’s no pressure. Just a good time with good friends.”
Returning alumni said seeing their friends again was one of the draws of coming back for the meet.
“The best part of being back is all of your friends coming to town and you get to see all of your buddies,” alumnus Wes Goodson said.
Current members of the swim team and alumni agreed that the meet is relaxed and fun, but current swimmers still wanted to defeat their former teammates.
“It’s just so much fun,” senior swimmer Sage Speak said. “We all get really competitive and it’s just great to see everyone and get the whole team back together.”
The alumni managed to pull out the narrow victory, but the competition was balanced by the fact that the current swim team had a practice before the meet.
“It was a pretty easy workout,” junior swimmer Brian Whittington said. “But they definitely had the advantage going into it. We were tired. We just wanted to make it fair.”
After the final event ended, all of the alumni and current team members gathered in the warm-up pool for one more team picture.