Mike Bids Farewell

IMy Saint Mary's swimming career started much later than my Saint Mary's academic career. Throughout my life, I have always viewed myself as a runner first. So much of my early life was spent on cross country and track and field teams. Swimming was something that was always secondary to me. Swimming was always a struggle for me when I was younger. When I first started taking swimming lessons in first grade I wouldn't put my head in the water, my stroke looked more like a cat being dropped into water, and I was terrified by the deep end. Little by little I started to become a better swimmer. The first step was becoming more comfortable in the water. I started doing this by relaxing and floating on my back. Before I knew it, I was swimming in the deep end of the pool. My stroke still needed some work, but I was progressing. The next step was getting my head wet. After much convincing from a swimming lessons teacher of mine and future swim coach, Sean O'Hara, I literally took the plunge. Now that I was willing to submerge my head, I was well on my way to joining the swim team. Joining the swim team was something I never really wanted to do when I was little, but two of my best friends, Chris Shea and Andy Jorde, were on the team and they eventually convinced me to join. This was a huge step, because swim team involved being in the ‘cold' pool at the YMCA and it meant swimming a lot of yards. Somehow I stuck it out, and survived five years on the team. By this point, however, running had become the central focus in my life. I started running for Cotter High School in Winona, Minn., in seventh grade, and I found a lot of success. I still flirted with the idea of swimming for the Winona Senior High School swim team, but I didn't get around to it until my freshman year, and not seriously until my senior year in high school. I finished high school with a very well-rounded athletic career I was an HVL all--conference cross country selection. After cross country, I began to think about swimming again and between Andy and Chris they had me once again convinced to give swimming a chance. I did and I had a blast, never before had I been on a team that felt so much like a family, and I dropped significant time in all of my swimming events, even though I took a two-year layoff from my freshman to senior year. At this point I was looking at colleges and what sports they offered and whether or not I would be able to compete. I chose Saint Mary's because I would be able to run on the cross country and track teams. Swimming was kind of an after thought at the time, or a fail safe if running didn't work out. I ended up competing on the cross country team for four years. But during my jjunior year in school I started to think about swimming more and more. I realized that I could be a help to the team and that I \had some unfinished business in the pool. So following my Junior cross country season I approached the head swimming and diving coach Eric Lindquist and asked him about the possibility of me swimming on the team. He let me on the team with open arms. The first year was tough because I left for the semester to study abroad in Italy and the team was only composed of five guys. This story, however, has a happy ending. Upon my return from Italy and the start of my senior year, the numbers of the swim team had more than doubled. All of a sudden we were a factor in duel meets again and being on swim team was fun. Old memories of high school swim team came flooding back to me and I realized how important swimming was to me. So I guess my story is of someone who always put swimming second, but realized in the nick of time that what I was overlooking, and taking for granted was the thing that was going to make me most happy.