Did you know Hamilton had a swim team?

This is Aaron McNamara’s first year joining the swim team, and also the first time the swim team is back together after the Covid outbreak. Before schools closed, the swim team had students who went all the way to CIF championships, said a past student who graduated last year and was proud to be a part of the team pre- covid that made it to CIF. 

Swim season started off once again this year during the spring sports season. Swimmer Eduardo Garcia said that since it’s a challenge to practice in a school with no pool,  “every day except Tuesday since there was no 7th” our Hami swim team walked outside to the track and took a bus to the nearby school LACES. The team got there around 3:50-4, practiced until 5, and got picked up from Hami at 5:30-6. 

“The drills we do may be hard for some at first but they’re all doable,” said Eduardo. “We make sure to stretch from the beginning for 25-30 minutes to not cramp up, including 100 easy freestyles as a warm-up. And if some were interested in learning how to swim, our coach Tori Lee  would teach them the basics like breathing or floating.” 

Aaron said, “For swim’s first year back, the team was concerningly small, so it was hard for us to compete in events,” as most high school races are medley races, requiring groups of four people doing different distances. That was a big letdown for this year’s swim team, but everyone’s happy the swim team could be started up once again. 

Aaron said he developed new friendships on the swim team. “We have an encouraging team and we’ve created a friendly environment,” he said. “I encourage others to join. It’s a lot of fun.” The team hopes that more swimmers will join our Hamilton Yankees swim team, so we can get our swimmers back tothe CIF state championships.