In the spring, the Fort Wayne YMCA’s boys over 15 swim team competed at a national short course meet.
Lucian Sipe has been swimming with the YMCA since he was seven-years-old. Nearly ten years later, he qualified to compete at the national level in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Sipe said he was doing summer swim and had a few friends who encouraged him to join the competitive swimming team if he wanted to improve.
"It’s a very close-knit team," he said. "And then I left for a few years and then I joined back and it was just as good as I remembered it being.”
YMCA Swimming began running national swimming and diving championships in 1923, only pausing for wars and pandemics. Director of strategy and quality practices Meredith Griffin says there’s a rich history around kids, coaches and volunteers getting together to take advantage of the opportunities the meets give them.
“To both challenge themselves, but also celebrate achievements, to build relationships with one another and come together belonging to a community around swimming," she said.
The Fort Wayne Sharks, Sipe’ swim team, have grown from a team of 80 to around 200 in the last few years and won the Indiana state championship before heading to nationals.
In Greensboro, the meet hosted two thousand swimmers from 81 YMCA’s across the country.
Along with Sipe, Max Evans also competed at the national meet. While he’s been swimming since he was young, Evans only recently joined the Sharks and said his experience has greatly improved because of how much more fun and close-knit the team is.
On competing at the national meet, Evans said it was a learning experience, getting to see how differently others approach the sport.
“’Cause there were a lot of people there that were from all across the country that were really fast and how other people swam and how they’re coaching was," he said. "But also it was definitely fun to just swim with a lot of other people that are really fast.”
Sipe agreed, but said his nerves were definitely high.
“For me, it’s definitely a little nerve-wracking because this is by far the fastest meet I’ve ever swam in my life," he said. "I know how to race some bigger meets now, just because of that.”
When it comes to competitive swimming, most people have two choices for where to swim; YMCA Swimming or USA Swimming. Griffin said it’s very common for kids to swim for both organizations. Sipe, in fact, is one of those swimmers.
He said that, while a lot of the structure is the same on both teams, there’s a heart to YMCA Swimming that makes it stand out.
LS 3 “With this team on YMCA, it’s like a family. Like, this last meet was so emotional and heart-driven, just because we never get to swim with these people again.”
Griffin said that’s by design.
"YMCA Swimming is really marked by a sense of community and support within that community," she said. "But it’s also more team-driven, rather than maybe individually-driven. And the idea behind that is we want teams to come together and represent their YMCAs and really have that overall sense of connectedness.”
Griffin said in YMCA swimming, teams come up through their community to the state and then national level and it’s important they feel a sense of pride in their community at each step.
Evans said one thing he wants people to better understand about swimming competitively is how much work and dedication the sport takes.
“You have to be in the pool all the time, just working, and you have to fix every little thing to just get to where you are, and it takes a lot of time and effort," he said. "It’s just a lot more work than a lot of people think.”
But Griffin said YMCA’s goal is for kids to take away more than just the competitive wins and losses of the sport. She said kids likely won’t remember the medals they won at 16 or where they placed.
“But your formative memories are all around the interactions with your teammates and the lessons you learned the hard way and how to be resilient," Griffin said. "And so, that’s really why we do what we do, is to help them on that journey.”
As the summer season continues, Evans is looking forward to the next step in his competitive journey.
“We can hopefully get a few city records and hopefully just have fun and build better bonds with people," he said.
