Tampa Bay Aquatics

By Martha Capwell-Fox

Graduation is on the horizon. Your final finals loom. So do your final meets. No more lessons, no more books. No more kick boards, no more splits. It's the end of life as you've known it. But it doesn't have to be the end of swimming.

You can graduate right into Masters swimming and find a whole new way of life in the pool.

What you may not find, at first, is a whole lot of people your age. "It's a shame, but most competitive swimmers are so burned out by the time they finish college, that it takes them a few years to get back into the pool," says Ross Geary, head coach at Foothills Community College in Los Altos, Calif., and former assistant varsity coach and Masters coach at Stanford. “A lot of things change in people's lives after college. Priorities shift, and swimming drops by the wayside for a while. Then after a few years they go back to the pool, and remember why they loved it."

"It took me two years after college to finally get back into the pool for more than twenty minutes," says Chris Mayer, a former Golden West Swim Club/U.C., Irvine freestyler. On the other hand, Steve Stehrenberger, whose last meet was the 2000 Olympic Trials, was still psyched about swimming when real life intervened. "I took a little more than a year off before I joined Novaquatics, due to the fact that I needed to graduate, move to Southern California and start a job," he says.

Ironically, the burnout factor is one reason why fair-to-middling former age-groupers can find themselves near the top of the charts in the 20-24 and even 25-29 brackets. Numerically, these are among the smaller age brackets in Masters, and they're seen as a tad less competitive. And often, recent grads who join Masters find themselves being blown out of the water by some older swimmers. "We see some big discrepancies between times in the 20s, 30s and 40s," says Randy Nutt, a race director and Masters swimmer in Florida, "and it's not unusual to see a 40-something beat a 20-something. There are all sorts of reasons for this, of course, but it's sometimes because the older swimmer is a former elite competitor who's found the fire again."

"The level of competition among the women in my age group -- the 35-39 – is incredible right now," says Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen, the current NCAA Division II record-holder in the 200y back. "I think it's the deepest and fastest in Masters. In the 40-44 bracket, they're smashing world records all the time. There was a time in my life that I figured swimming would be over. Now I can see myself doing this for the rest of my life. I'm just hoping that more of the women I raced in college get into it. That would make it really interesting!"

U.S. Masters holds two national championship meets a year -- a long-course and a short-course, and there are international championship meets. Swimmers compete as individuals, but teams are ranked, too. Then there are regional competitions, and individual teams hold meets. There are also many events that qualify simply as "fun" or fund-raisers. Generally, Masters compete in a greater variety of events than club or school team swimmers do – distance events, postal swims and several kinds of open water races appear on most teams' schedules. Craig Taylor, a five-year veteran of Masters who swims with Rose Bowl Aquatics in Pasadena, Calif., even created his own meet. He and some friends are planning a 56-mile ocean relay next year to raise money for cancer research. So the choice of competition – and even the choice to compete – is wide open in Masters.

"The level of competition in Masters is really what you want to make it, " says Taylor. "I think it depends on both the team members and the attitude of the coach. Currently at Rose Bowl, I'm seeing a core group of swimmers that are very interested in pool competitions, and a coach that encourages involvement. But I've been on teams where the focus on competing is much lower."

"If you want to swim with former (and sometimes current) Olympic-caliber swimmers, there are meets at this level," says Novaquatics' Dan Sullivan. "There is competition for every level, between "fun" swims and international. Workouts are the same way. We have people who are 70-plus at one end of the pool, and swimmers looking seriously at the next Olympic Trials at the other end."

In Masters, you can re-create yourself as a swimmer. You won't have to concentrate on a stroke or event just because your coach says it's your best -- or because your team needs to fill a hole on a meet roster. You can switch specialties or distances, or try an event or stroke you never imagined you could do before. In fact, that's exactly what a lot of Masters swimmers and coaches advise.

Sullivan, 41, was a middle-distance freestyler on a small college (Drury University) national champion team in the 70s. Now his best event is the 200 fly. "I never swam that in college, so I can't get depressed about going significantly slower now." Mayer, 31, was a middle- and long-distance freestyler on club and college teams and now concentrates on the IM. "There's no way I could match my old times without spending four hours a day in the pool. And that's more of a time investment than I can afford to make now."

In Masters, you're free to find your own style of coaching, or self-coaching, too. "I'd like another shot at the Olympic Trials," says Stehrenberger. "I've never been big on mega yardage, or long periods of intense training. My college coach's attitude was 'This is the program, and that's what is going to work.' But Masters gives me the opportunity to train the way I think I should train. I think if a swimmer is mentally honest with him or herself, that swimmer can accomplish as much as someone on a club or college team."

One big difference in Masters is that it really isn't the coach's job to motivate or goad you to perform. And practice isn't mandatory. That is now entirely up to you. That's very liberating, say most Masters swimmers. Swimming is fun again. And it has other rewards.

"I swim to get in shape and try to win some medals and maybe set an age group record," says Novaquatics' Fred Anderson, who was a high school All-American in 1959-60. "But if I never set a record, I still know that I am in better shape. I feel a sense of personal satisfaction that I can do it."

"I actually enjoy swimming more now than I did in school," says Novaquatic's Keith Dennison, a former Arizona State butterflyer. "Now it's something I want to do, rather than what I have to do. Plus, it's a great way to exercise!"

"I've learned more about swimming in terms of stroke technique, training and nutrition in the last five years than I knew in high school or college," says Taylor, who was an NCAA Division II champion in the early 70s. "Masters swimming has been a great addition to my adult life."

Whether you're looking for someone to hang on the lane lines and chat with, or a gang to go out with for pizza after practice, or a few friends to build a dryland social circle, Masters affords lots of social opportunities, too. That, in fact, is the No. 1 reason most Masters swimmers give for being in the program. And once you're in, you can swim with any team. So if work takes you on the road, you'll almost always find folks to swim with. Being part of a Masters team can ease the transition from school life to the work world. "For most of us, being a swimmer is a big part of who we are," says Pipes-Neilsen. "It's great to always have a place in our lives for swimming, and Masters helps us do that."

How to find a Masters team

You join US Masters Swimming by joining a local team. Check with a couple of pools in your area to find one, or log on to www.usms.org to find the nearest one.

If you're in a big urban area, you'll probably be lucky enough to have a few (or many) Masters teams to choose from. Here's a piece of advice from Houston's Emmet Hines: Pick a team, then find a place to live that's nearby that pool. "Most people do it in this order: job, home, pool. If you're new to an area, and assuming you don't have much choice about the location of your workplace, it makes sense to find a pool, then get a place to live that makes it easy to get there," he says. "Nothing will torpedo your good intentions faster than having the pool be a hassle to get to."

If you're really serious about continuing competitive swimming, look for a big team, Hines suggests. On most large teams, there's a core of dedicated racers. There are a few teams (the Olympic Club Masters of San Francisco, for one) that are very focused on high-level competition. But for the most part, says Hines, you're probably not going to find too many teams with the same kind of high-intensity, high-stress atmosphere you're used to. That's where self-motivation comes in -- or you may find that you just don't need that kind of competitive environment anymore.

Young Masters

You don't have to be 40 to be a Masters swimmer. Or 30, or even 20. You can be 19. "I've had swimmers who were in college when they joined Masters," says Emmet Hines, coach of H2OSwims and one of the most influential Masters coaches in the US. "Why were they swimming with us instead of on their college team? Any number of reasons: They didn't make their college team. They wanted to keep swimming, but felt they couldn't cut it academically while putting in all that practice time. Maybe they just wanted a more relaxed swimming experience than they'd had in high school."

In other words, not being on a college varsity team (or a club team) while you're in college doesn't mean you must give up competing, or training with a team and coach. Many Masters teams use college pools to work out in, so you might not even have to go off-campus. And while you may very likely find yourself the youngest person around by a few decades, don't let that put you off or lull you into a false sense of superiority. You're probably going to find yourself sharing lanes with folks who can swim as fast (or faster) than you can, despite that fact that they're as old as your parents.