The Little Giant Tankers traveled west to St. Louis this morning to face the 5th ranked Washington University Bears... and as I sit on the bus right now typing a "meet recap" I know I am mostly hoping to put an end to this annoying replaying of the meet in my mind, over and over again. I guess I am hoping for some type of closure once I am done typing. Yeah, we were that bad today. There is small part of me that thinks a practice would have done us better than this meet - and honestly, we probably would have swam faster in practice than we did today... but as I type I am not at all finding it impossible to see that this was an important experience for the team.

There is no hiding the fact that we are young. Thirteen freshman on a team of 27. As you might guess, we are all learning how to deal with new challenges weekly... we seem to face some sort of adversity at every turn. And you know what? We stink at adversity. Really really stink. When things are going good, oh man, watch out! We can be amazing. But when we are off, we are way off - and there seems to be no turning back.

I'm fine with it.

Tony Dungy was interviewed by ESPN The Magazine last month and talked about not needing to yell and scream when his team failed because he believed in his preparation, he believed in his plan. I like that. The Colts just seem to go right back to work the next week - and trust their leader and their program. Hey, even a guy born and raised in New England can see that the Colts aren't bad... and more importantly, anybody can see that over the entire Dungy era they have continually improved from year to year. Similarly, I know what we do at Wabash is right. I know the college, the student athletes, and this team's philosophy are right... in the truest sense of the word.

"It won't be easy but it will be worth it," I like that too.

I know that we will remember this time in our program's history. Yes, we will surely learn from it, but more importantly when we are amazing the success we experience will be even sweeter than we expected. My heart knows that is true. And, funny as it sounds, swimming is a sport that only rewards those whose heart is in it.

At this point I won't hesitate in telling everyone that I love this team. They have trained well, they have worked hard, and they have come together as a team. It has been an awesome ride so far. No, it hasn't been easy... and it really hasn't been all that fun at times, but the strides we have taken in just one short year have made me proud. And although we haven't looked adversity straight in the eye and kicked its butt... I have a feeling we are closer than we ever have been.

Today we had a couple of guys triumph over adversity. Freshman diver Rob Fenoglio won the 3 meter diving competition. Sophomore Michael Belanger came in 2nd in the 1650 by touching out his opponent by .02 tenths of second! And Sophomore Aaron Spolarich was just 2 seconds off his lifetime best in the 200 Breaststroke. All of those were outstanding performances - and proof that we will be OK.

Wednesday we travel to Greencastle to take on DePauw. If we swim like we did today we will get pummeled, but guess what?... I like our chances.

More Better,

-PHC

This little guy makes me smile too... (AJC - 10 Months Old)