More Than Just Lap Swimming: Louisville 's Masters Swim Teams

Don't let the name fool you.

"Masters swimming is not about swimmers who are a class above or about professional swimmers," says Crescent Hill Masters Swimming coach Tom Mester. "It's more about older people swimming."

In groups, these adult athletes churn through the water - a blur of bodies hurtling up and down lanes, driven by personal goals that can only be met through the closed-out sound of the outside world rushing past their ears. Although they range from former college swimmers to those new to the sport, these water-lovers all share the desire to swim simultaneously as a team and as individuals. Most will say it is the like-minded balance of camaraderie and fitness that draws them back to the water again and again. Nationwide, there are over 40,000 Masters swimmers, ranging in age from 19 to over 100. Almost 450 Masters swimmers call Kentucky home, with about 200 making forays into the chlorinated embrace of Louisville 's swimming pools.

Louisville 's Masters teams are registered as a part of Swim Kentucky Masters. Better known as SKY, the league is an umbrella group that began in 2002 and is part of the national United States Masters swimming organization. The creation of SKY by the Kentucky Local Masters swimming committee permits swimmers from different teams in the state to swim together as one large team at out-of-state meets, thus raising Kentucky 's swimming profile and increasing chances to rank higher nationally.

On April 22-25, SKY made a strong showing at the USMS Short-Course-Yards Nationals swim meet in Indianapolis with 66 athletes. The women's team placed third in the Medium Teams category and the men's team placed third in the Large Teams category. Combined, the two teams placed fifth in the Medium Teams category.

Currently, there are five registered Masters swim teams in Louisville : Lakeside Masters Swim Team, Crescent Hill Masters Swim Team, Louisville YMCA Swim Team, Bellarmine University Masters Swim Team and Milestone Masters Swim Team. The teams are a nod to the popularity of the sport in Louisville , according to Lakeside Masters coach Bill Tingley.

LAKESIDE

Of Louisville 's Masters teams, a few have been around for at least a decade or longer. Lakeside Masters got its start in 1976 by Gary Weisenthal and Jack Thompson; Coach Tingley came on board in 1981. Tingley describes Lakeside 's program as being "focused strictly on fitness swimming to competitive swimming, using competitive training techniques and stroke techniques in terms of workout sets. It's always goal-oriented. We're trying to get some kind of a goal for each individual swimmer. And the swimmers themselves have to define their own goals," says Tingley, who emphasizes the need to know how to swim before joining the team. "Swimming is like golf - it's all based on technique. If you do not have the technique, you're only beating yourself up in the water."

Cross training is also an important element in Lakeside Masters swimming. "I encourage everyone to cross-train in some manner. Whether it's cross-training to weights, cross-training to running, cross-training to bikes, I encourage everyone to do some kind of cross-training," Tingley says, understanding the reality that busy adult swimmers don't have many hours to spend in the water.

LOUISVILLE YMCA

Heather Lehman coaches the Louisville YMCA Masters swim team. The team has five swimmers, ranging in age from 22 to 54. Lehman encourages swimmers who are new to the sport to "come once to try it out. We all start somewhere, and there is a wide ability range on this team." To accommodate the different levels, Lehman writes one workout and cuts it in half for the swimmers who are still learning.

Lehman wants her team to have fun and socialize as well, and enjoyed hosting the team's open-water swim last summer, describing it as a great way for the team to participate and be a part of SKY.

CRESCENT HILL

Tom Mester has coached the Crescent Hill Masters team, which began in 1991, almost from its inception. Mester calls Crescent Hill, "a balanced team. The serious swimmers help the new ones with things like pace training and interval swimming, while less serious swimmers keep the team fun."

Mester views coaching and swimming "as a release, a way to set long-term goals and meet them. Changing someone's stroke for the better is an immediate satisfaction." One of Mester's proudest memories of Masters swimming occurred in 2001 when he completed a six-mile open-water swim at the age of 50 and met his goal of swimming it in three hours.

The growth of Masters in Louisville is something Mester attributes to different factors. He explains, "Exposure with triathletes has helped Masters in Louisville . In 2007, Louisville will host the Senior Games and the Masters will be in charge of the swimming venue. Louisville has always been a good swimming town, especially with age-group swimmers growing up and coming back to swim in Masters. With SKY, the whole community can swim together. There can still be team rivalries, but out of state, SKY will help Masters grow with more visibility."

MILESTONE

The Milestone Masters team, one of Louisville 's newest teams, began on April 1, 2004. According to coach Nancy McElwain, Milestone aquatic director Mary Duke discussed starting a team with her after some of the members expressed an interest. Currently, there are eight to 10 members who practice.

McElwain states, "A few members have expressed interest in entering meets, while some want this as a means to get aerobic exercise. Most everybody is really interested in strokework." McElwain wants "everyone to get out of it what they want and to work on what they want."

For McElwain, Masters swimming "means the perfect way to get involved and stay involved in swimming for the long term. Masters is a way for each person to work towards something in his or her own life. It's more than just swimming."

BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY

Not all Masters teams have had an easy time getting off the ground. One of the Bellarmine University Masters swimming founders, Lindsay Gutmann, is presently the only swimmer on her team. Started in 2003, the team began when she and friend Kate Just started a Masters team as a way to introduce women's swimming as a varsity sport at Bellarmine. According to Gutmann, attendance at practices lagged and the team was put on hiatus. Gutmann's plan is to "try again in the fall, try to bring in some more freshmen and try to get some consistency." Gutmann hopes the school's new athletic director will help drum up support in adding swimming as a sport.

Gutmann explains, "If the team becomes a college varsity team, the Masters swimmers would still practice as a team and compete in Masters meets but not necessarily in college meets." Gutmann and another friend, Laura Kraemer, have been working together to bring the team to a reality. "We are hoping for four consistent girls," Gutmann says, "Most important right now in getting started is to have people know what we want to do, because Bellarmine does not have a swim team. We need support from the school and the community to get the money to support a coach." She emphasizes that while her team is a Masters team, her desire is to turn it into a varsity sport. If the team did grow, eventually it could be split into two teams - a collegiate team and a Masters team.

While the swimmers on Louisville 's teams take part in the sport for different reasons, some, like Lakeside 's Valerie Davisson, are drawn to the way Masters swimming works into their lives. Davisson enjoys the "good balance of going as far as you want to go [in Masters swimming]. You can focus on a meet, or just use the workouts to work out."

Crescent Hill Masters' athlete Betsy Whittemore says, "My lifestyle is incorporated into swimming. It is a central part of my life.swimming brought peace into my life when I was surrounded by chaos. It was like meditation, perhaps something to do with the rhythmic breathing while swimming."

A saying adopted from a friend stays with her constantly: "Swimming is like the rudder of my life - it keeps me on track."

Margaret Schauer, a swimmer and aspiring triathlete, is currently completing her Master of Fine Arts in writing at Spalding University .  

Here's how to find out more about local teams.

Bellarmine - Lindsay Gutmann - lgutmann01@bellarmine.edu

Crescent Hill - Tom Mester - tjmester@bluegrass.net

Lakeside - Bill Tingley - btingley@aye.net

Milestone - Nancy McElwain - nmcelwain1@msn.com

YMCA - Heather Lehman - hlehman@ymcalouisville.org