While our other sports teams have state of the art facilities close at hand, the Harrison swim team faces a long commute to Indiana for every practice and game. Our swim team practices at the Lawrenceburg High School pool Monday through Thursday and a majority of Saturday mornings.
Because we share another school’s pool, communication is huge as we coordinate practice and meet times. “Home” meets for the Cats are not actually at Harrison. Our team hosts the meets through the generosity of the Lawrenceburg Tigers. On the occasional days that Lawrenceburg has home meets, both teams improvise to get the pool time they need.
In addition to the high school team, the junior high also takes advantage of the opportunity to share Lawrenceburg’s pool by practicing before the high school. Many high school swimmers have younger siblings on the Junior School team, and these students end up waiting through both practices before getting to head home. This is not necessarily the worst thing, but it does eat up a huge amount of time. The Junior School and High School practice times fluctuate between the teams based on meets and availability of the facility. These practice times are often 6:30-8:00 pm and 7:30-9:00 pm.
Head Coach Brossart, Coach Locke, and first-year Coach Stinson have different takes on the long drive time. Coach Locke takes on a 35-minute drive every day to Lawrenceburg High School. Many times, he hangs out at the high school to kill time between school ending and practice beginning. Locke says, “I tend to get to practice around 6:15, from the high school to the pool, the drive is usually 18-20 mins on a good day.” We may need a go fund me for the number of cars who partake in the regular 40-minute drive. There isn’t really a choice for the team, though, as Coach Brossart put it: “It’s the only pool we’ve got.”
This year, a new coach has taken on the big role of leading both junior high and high school teams. Coach Stinson is a familiar face, because his younger sister, Sophia Stinson has been a part of both teams. Their family bounces from practice to practice, with not one but two time consuming drives. Sophia practices at Powell Crosley Jr. YMCA swim team, a 45 min to an hour drive from Lawrenceburg. Meanwhile, her brother drives back for another 30 min drive back for both Stinsons to get there.
The drive is tough all around, and especially for new drivers. But both coaches and players are willing to do it, and they take advantage of what they have and work hard to improve with the pool time they get. They often feel overlooked, and there is a lot of hope within the swim community that someday, either through a commercial pool being built or perhaps as a part of our next high school building project, we might get a pool of our own, right here in our community.
