High school swim team stoked for first strokes of season

Medals made of pieces from the Eiffel Tower may not be up for grabs in Southeast Alaska, but the Wrangell High School swim team is just as motivated as ever.

Another swim season is underway as practices began earlier this month. The team trains five days a week and will travel to its first meet of the season in Petersburg on Sept. 6.

For Jamie Roberts, the team's head coach, the upcoming season has some sentimental value.

After eight years on the job, this season will be her last. Roberts founded the high school swim program and has also coached the K-12 club team for over a decade.

A staple synonymous with Wrangell swimming, Roberts can't help but be excited for what this year has to offer. The team returns five swimmers from last year - including senior Anika Herman - and two freshmen making their debuts at the high school level, both of whom have been impressive in preseason, she said.

With many swimmers working their summer jobs, getting a full team to the preseason training is difficult, according to Roberts. But once everyone is in the pool, she expects to have a team of six to eight swimmers. The school district requires a minimum of six swimmers in order for the team to receive funding.

Meets are scheduled for every other week, and the Wolves will travel to Ketchikan, Juneau and Sitka after the initial meet in Petersburg. Petersburg will also host the Southeast championships in early November. If any Wrangell swimmers qualify for state, they will travel to Anchorage a week later.

While some coaches may be consumed by a fervent obsession of final finishes and race results, Roberts champions individual improvement above all else. If you swim for Roberts and you finish last but your 200-yard freestyle time improved by half a second, that's a win in her book.

"What I like to see across a season is improvement over the course of the season," Roberts said. "Both in individual times but also in technique."

The challenges of the swim season are not limited to what happens in the pool. On away trips, other schools' classrooms often become the swimmers' bedrooms, resting their heads on the floors of history classrooms rather than hotel pillows. At home, practice availability is synonymous with lifeguard availability, a circumstance further made fraught by recent budget cuts to the parks and recreation department.

And yet, Roberts and the team are making the most of it, stroke by stroke, kick by kick, lap by lap - always striving to improve.