These ‘Cats aren’t afraid of a little water

When Tammi Sheppard came to Georgia College & State University in the fall of 2003, she longed for competitive swimming, the type that she participated while in high school. Her dream has finally come true.

Sheppard, with the help of advisor Dr. Mike Martino, is the president of the Swim Cats, the new club swim team at GC&SU that formed in the spring of 2004.

“When I got here in the fall of 2003, I couldn’t stand the thought of not swimming after being on a team for 12 years,” Sheppard said. “I practiced by myself for a few weeks, but that became boring quickly. I found seven other people who wanted to swim and we started a club with the help of Student Activities.”

Maureen Hassey, vice president of the Swim Cats, agreed with Sheppard that there was a need for a swim team at GC&SU.

“There are more and more students coming from areas where swimming is a predominate sport,” Hassey said. “There is so much interest out there, but they just don’t know about us. Swimming is one of the best forms of exercise out there. It works your body all over. This is such an appealing sport for some students because some people want to lose weight and this is an easy way to do it.”

Sheppard said the club team has 13 members as of January 19, but the number is steadily increasing. The Swim Cats have enough swimmers to compete in 50 yards, 100 yards, and 200 yards of each event, which includes butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.

“We will also compete in the 400 freestyle, and 500 freestyle and swim the 200 and 400 freestyle relays as well as the 200 medley relay,” Sheppard said.

Sheppard points to the freestyle as being the strength of the team. Hassey targets the intangibles as the strength of the young team.

“Everyone has a desire to be there, loves to swim, and we have a good turn out at practice,” Hassey said.

Hassey points to low funding and a shortage of swimmers as current obstacles for the club team. The club team also faces the challenges of getting to more meets and spreading the word that GC&SU now has a club swim team.

Sheppard said that the club team is not currently categorized in a division-a situation that offers the young swim team a chance to compete against whomever they want.

“We’re trying to set up a meet for February, but as of now our first meet is March 12 at the University of Florida,” Sheppard said. “Following that meet, we’ll be competing in the East Coast Championship hosted by the Georgia Tech club team. Our final meet of the semester will be the South Eastern Championship hosted by the University of Georgia club team.”

The club team practices Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the indoor pool in the basement of the Health Sciences building. The club team conditions in the Depot on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Anybody interested in joining the Swim Cats can reach Tammi Sheppard at tammi_ sheppard@ bobcat.gcsu.edu.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Jan 28 2005. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry