Waking up every morning as the clock strikes 5:30 a.m. may be tough for swimmer Sean Ellis, but the experience will help him in the real world after college.

Ellis said the early wake-ups put him ahead of other students that get ready for 11 o’clock classes. But it does mean early nights, too.

‘You won’t see us in a bar tonight,’ Ellis said.

From rallying as a team to leadership to learning effective methods of time management, swimming, Ellis and Catrina Roth claim, can make you mature faster than anything.

The two seniors talked about the program’s ‘phase-out’ and how it has taught them to unite with other teammates.

Roth said the eventual elimination of the swimming and diving program has a different feel to it this year than it did last year. Last year, the swimmers were fighting to save a program that was scheduled to be eliminated after last season, which rallied the swimmers together. This year, Roth said, there does not seem to be the same sense of urgency.

‘Last year, we were pulling together for a common cause and it was a success,’ Roth said. ‘This year, we need that same type of motivation back.’

Ellis said the proposed elimination of the program motivated the team to rally together and used it as just one example of how swimming can affect him in and out of the pool.

‘When you’re faced with that type of situation, you can pull together as a team or you can just lay back,’ Ellis said. ‘It’s the same in a lot of situations, especially when you start working with people professionally.’

Ellis also explained that being in a competitive environment like swimming forces a person to interact with all kinds of people and see all sides of people.

After what Ellis and Roth have seen in the past, they no longer doubt a team’s ability to exceed expectations.

‘We’ve both seen that we have the power to rally behind a cause,’ Roth said. ‘I think that’s going to come again as the season goes on, starting with next week in South Carolina. Hopefully someone swims well and it motivates everyone else.’

One of the most stinging criticisms of the Syracuse athletic department last year came from four-time Olympic champion swimmer Janet Evans. Evans said swimming teaches life lessons, hard work and discipline, and that the university should be ‘ashamed’ of its decision to eliminate a program that teaches young athletes such valuable lessons.

Roth, who has swam with 2008 Olympic backstroke champion Matt Grevers, and Ellis, who has seen Michael Phelps swim in person, know the lasting impact a celebrity can have on the popularity of any sport.

‘I definitely hope it gains a little more intensity in the sporting world, especially around campus,’ Ellis said. ‘It would be great to see more people at our meets, and it would motivate us even more if the campus was into (swimming).’

Roth said she was disappointed in the general lack of appreciation for the program last year.

‘We got the vibe that a lot of people thought swimming was not that cool of a sport, which hurt because I don’t think anyone knows how much dedication and hard work goes into it unless you actually do it,’ she said.

Neither of the swimmers knows how much they will swim beyond this year. But they do know that the lessons of swimming will apply from this day forward.

But before their time in the pool ends, the two still have goals to accomplish during their time at Syracuse. Roth hopes to top all of her times from last year while improving every phase of her swimming. Ellis yearns to qualify for the Big East Championship meet in Indianapolis.

They just hope someone will realize there are still goals to accomplish.

‘The athletic department seemed to do a great job making it known that we were going to be eliminated, but not so great of a job announcing when we got reinstated,’ Ellis said. ‘A lot of people say, ‘Oh my God! There’s still a swim team?”

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on November 12, 2008 at 12:00 pm