Auburn Men's NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships Blog
March 26, 2008
By Matt Crouch Day 1
In just two days, the Tigers will join the top teams in the nation at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, Wash., for the 2008 version of the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships. "I think the whole experience so far has been a blast," said freshman Kohlton Norys. "I think that our team has really clicked together and it has really been one heck of an experience." Senior Alexei Puninski chimed in along with Norys on how close the team has come, but has mixed emotions on swimming in his last meet as a Tiger. "Right now, I am really happy and a little sad because it is my last year," said Puninski. "I am really enjoying my time with all the guys on the team. We had a really nice dinner tonight and the coaches are really taking care of us. But, this week won't be the end of it for me. I am going to stick around and train with Cesar and these guys after I am done. It is just a great environment to be in." The venue is no stranger to a couple members of the Auburn coaching staff. The facility was built to host the swimming events as part of the 1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle. Auburn head coach Richard Quick served as head coach of the women's U.S. national team at the 1990 Goodwill Games, coaching the Americans to 11 gold medals at the meet. The King County Aquatic Center is also in a rotation with the Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool in Long Beach, Calif., in hosting the Pac-10 Conference Swimming and Diving Championships. Quick, while coaching the Stanford women's team, traveled to Federal Way every other year for the meet. Also making those trips is head diving coach Jeff Shaffer, who was diving coach at Southern California from 1995-99.
The Aquatic Center is very nice and should be a great venue for the meet this week. It hosts more than 50 events each year and has been the site of Olympic Trials as well as top national and international competitions. When you walk into the pool, you see 31 flags hanging from the ceiling - one for each country that has competed at the facility. "I really like the pool and it feels like a fast pool so I think we have a good chance to swim really fast," said senior Alexei Puninski. "I checked out the blocks today and they are really high, so I'm looking forward to swimming fast and breaking some records this week." The team has been hard at work since arriving in town on Monday. Some of the staff arrived in Seattle on Sunday night, flying directly over from Columbus, Ohio, the site of last week's NCAA Women's Swimming and Diving Championships. It was a long and brutal trip, but I am happy to be here on my first visit to the Pacific Northwest. The team arrived in town late Monday morning, being picked up by a pair of Hummer limousines at the airport. Everyone then came to our hotel, the Best Western Peppertree, before heading off to the pool for a light workout. Coincidentally, the team is staying this week in Auburn. . . . Auburn, Wash., that is. Auburn and Federal Way are both suburbs of Seattle and are just a few minutes apart from each other. Auburn is also the home of Emily Kukors, a senior on the Tiger women's swimming team. The hotel is pretty nice and what is even better is that when you glance out the front of the hotel, you get a great view of Mount Rainier. At more than 14,000 feet, it definitely dominates the landscape around here. I looked for it my first day in town, but did not see it. Then, yesterday, I looked again and still did not see it. Then, I looked up. The whole time that I was looking for this really high peak, I apparently was not looking high enough as it does tend to get lost in the clouds sometimes. After getting settled in last night, the team got an early start on Tuesday with its first full day in town. Some of the swimmers headed over to the pool at 7:30 a.m. for a morning swim with the divers following at 10 a.m. The second round of practices started at 12:30 p.m. with the swimmers coming over. A few of them swam stingers (fast, race-simulating swims) to help get ready for Thursday. The divers came in for their second practice at 3 p.m. "It is an awesome feeling because when you walk in to the pool, everyone turns their head to look at you," said Norys. "Like today with us swimming stingers. We started swimming and people would look to watch and to see what times we were swimming. Everyone reacts to what we do in the pool it just kind of pumps you up and gets you ready for the meet to start on Thursday." Following practice, the team went to the movie theater and saw "The Bank Job." After the movie, everyone headed down to the waterfront to a restaurant called Salty's. The place was great; the food was really good and the location was perfect. Salty's basically sits on stilts out in the water off Redondo Beach on the Puget Sound. The restaurant was apparently popular among some of the other teams at the meet. While we were there, we also saw the teams from Miami, Florida State, Stanford and Virginia. Everyone is back at the hotel now, relaxing after a long day. Time is winding down, though, as Wednesday is the last day before the meet starts on Thursday. The team is excited and ready for a good meet, so it should be exciting to see how the team does. Not only is a national championship on the line, but also a little bit of history. Only one other team has was six NCAA titles in a row and that was Indiana from 1968-73. With a win this week, Auburn could join a very prestigious club. WAR EAGLE!!! Day 2
Today was also an important day as it was the media appearance day. Following practice, head coach Richard Quick, senior Alexei Puninski, junior Cesar Cielo and sophomore Pascal Wollach headed up to the banquet hall at the pool to appear at a pre-meet press conference. There were several members of the local media out to get interviews with the top teams in the meet. The press conference was set up so that each of the teams present had their own table and the media would just go around to the teams they wanted to speak with. You could definitely tell who the five-time defending NCAA champion was as every member of the media flocked to the Auburn table as soon as Coach Quick and the swimmers walked in. Following the press conference, the team came back to the hotel for lunch and then at 1:30, Coach Quick, Cesar and senior Scott Goodrich participated in a conference call with some of the local media from back in Auburn. The team was free for the afternoon and everyone chose to use their time differently. Some went back to the pool at 5 p.m. for some more time in the water while others went on a walk with assistant coach Brett Hawke. The evening capped off with an Italian dinner at a place called Vince's. Everyone was treated to family-style portions of salad, pizza, spaghetti and tortellini. Also at the dinner, the team continued a tradition of recognizing the senior class before the start of the meet. Cielo spoke about Puninski, Michael Silva spoke about David Maras, Steve Scheren spoke about Scott Goodrich and Jordan Anderson spoke about Luke Weniger. Speaking of Weniger, he wrote an entry to the blog today, talking about what the team did on their last day before the start of the 2008 Championships. By Luke Weniger The mood is relaxed as we entered the pool this morning for our first practice today. Seeing how many teams were at the pool made the meet feel like it was finally here. Everyone looked GREAT in the water and sounded very confident about their preparation. After practice, we went back to the hotel to eat lunch, shave down and relax. Driving back to the hotel there weren't many clouds and we had a beautiful view of Mount Rainier. Once at the hotel, some people watched movies, some played cards or chess and others got a few games of Monopoly going. In the early evening a few people headed back to the pool for a second practice. On Brett's suggestion, the rest of the team was going to go on a nature walk and take in the beautiful scenery of the mountains. But due to the Seattle rain we ended up having our nature walk in the Super Mall down the street from the hotel. Steve Scheren was in heaven when we found a sword shop in the mall. A Korean kendo martial artist that wouldn't let us see any of the swords owned the store. But after everyone said Steve loved swords/knives, the owner promptly cut Steve's fingernail with one of his samurai swords to show how sharp they were. From the mall, we went straight to Vince's Italian Restaurant for dinner. A quick dinner and we went back to the hotel for a short team meeting. Once the meeting concluded, everyone went back to their rooms to finish shaving and prepare themselves for the meet tomorrow. Looking forward to getting the meet started tomorrow. I know everyone is excited and ready to get in the water. WAR EAGLE!!! Day 3
That's all you can really say after a night like tonight. Though I have worked with swimming and diving teams for a few years, this week and last week with the women have been my first experiences with big-time, fast meets and watching Cesar Cielo rip through the pool is a pretty amazing thing. Just to think about it: In all the years of swimming, there have only been 13 times in the 50-yard freestyle recorded below the 19-second barrier and Cielo owns nine of those times. That is a case of taking what would be an extraordinary feat for nearly anyone else in the World and making it just another day at the office. I had been anticipating this night for a while. It was pretty exciting seeing Cesar go 18.91 at the SEC Championships. Then, a week or so later, I was watching the sprinters practice and talking to sprints coach Brett Hawke. Brett was pumped up about the way his guys were swimming, especially Cesar, and he told me to watch out for him tonight. Apparently, he had a pretty good grip on how Cesar was going to do as he called the time that he put up tonight. Before Cesar stepped up to the blocks for the 200 free relay, Brett gave him a folded piece of paper and told him not to open it until after the race. After clocking an 18.47, Cesar unfolded the paper and saw "18.47" written on it. He knew exactly how his top sprinter would do. Just how fast Cesar would go had been a topic of conversation around the pool for a while. During the break between prelims and finals, I was talking to Jason Marsteller, the managing editor of Swimming World Magazine, and he showed me a text message from a friend of his that predicted Cesar at 18.46 - just one hundredth of a second off his actual time. It was definitely something impressive to watch. Even more so was watching him come back up about a half hour later to swim the 50 free and clock another time below his old record as he touched in at 18.52. Auburn is known for its sprinting and that is one thing we definitely do well. Three of the four legs on Auburn's winning 200 free relay team clocked splits under 19 seconds. That marked half of the sub-19 splits in the race as three other teams came in with one split under 19 seconds. Overall, though, the meet has started off as being a very fast one. For proof, you need to look no further than the Auburn swimmers that did not advance to finals. Obviously, Auburn has a strong swimming tradition - seven national championships don't happen because you are just OK. So, breaking into the top-10 all-time in a particular event at Auburn is no small feat. Well, in the morning preliminaries, Auburn had three swimmers clock times that ranked in the top 10 all-time at Auburn, yet they did not make the finals. Will Dove swam a 4:20.50 in the 500 free, a time that comes in fifth all-time at Auburn, but finished 19th in prelims, leaving him out of the finals. Freshman Robert Looney swam a 4:21.69 in the 500 free, coming in at eighth all-time at Auburn, but he finished 24th in the preliminary. In the 200 IM, Tyler McGill clocked a 1:46.04 (10th all-time at Auburn), but was just able to tie for 16th in the preliminary and had to go to a swim-off to earn a spot in finals. McGill was not first to the wall in the swim-off and had to watch the finals from the bleachers. With the first day behind us, the excitement should continue on Friday with the 200 medley relay and three of the 100-yard races. Also, be sure to check out Swimming World Magazine's coverage of the meet (www.SwimmingWorldMagazine.com). They have a short recap of each race while also offering live streaming video of both prelims and finals. After the session is over, they have the races archived so that you can watch them on demand. Another place to check out for coverage of the meet is CollegeSwimming.com. They have a correspondent at the meet this week, Drew Ossakow, who is also providing race-by-race coverage. Drew, who I got to know a little better this afternoon, swam collegiately at Indiana and actually trained there under current Auburn assistant coach Brian Barnes. WAR EAGLE!!! Day 4
Tonight's blog entry comes from freshman Robert Looney as he reflects on the experience so far of his first trip to NCAAs. Well, there is only one more day left of my first NCAA Championship and going into the last day I keep thinking about our first dryland that we had this year with PK. To tell you the truth, I had never been so scared in my entire life. The very first thing that PK had us do was lining up in a formation, and slowly he walked around a few minutes not saying a word. He could see the fear in my eyes, and when he walked beside me he asked me if I had any idea what we were doing today. I had heard rumors of what the team had done in the past, but with PK nothing could be certain. Knowing that I had no idea, I answered that we were going to do whatever he wanted us to. Wrong answer... Little did I know that PK wanted me to realize that on that day we were going to start becoming a team. The drylands and circuits we went through were for times like these. I'll be honest, right now we aren't where we thought we would be. We have been taking hits these past two days at this meet, and it's really testing who we truly are. It is now that I know the answer to PK's question, and going into the last day I can truthfully say that I'm not scared anymore. Right now this team is closer than any other team in this meet. We can look into each other's eyes and believe in what we have done this past year. We have been hit with so many things this year, and it's been a really bumpy ride. We have taken hits that some teams could never recover from, but we have. We have lost many teammates for one reason or another, we were hit back at the Tennessee dual meet, the Texas dual meet, and injuries have been present as well, but we are still here. That is what makes us Auburn. We are put in situations that call for a response, and all the responses we have made have been incredible. We get hit, we get back up. We are the strongest team in the NCAA and we are still Auburn. Every time we leave our locker room back home and head onto the pool deck for practice, we hit a sign that says "...never to yield..." because we want to live by that especially when things get rough. And right now we are breathing that motto. I'm going into the last day and I have the 1650 and 200 fly, and I can't wait. The beautiful thing about that double is that I don't have to swim alone. No event any Auburn swimmer does is by his/herself. The team is with you the whole way, and tomorrow we will end this meet together, as a team, as a single unit. My first NCAAs wasn't as good as I thought it would be...it was BETTER. WAR EAGLE!!! |
 
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