Over the past week, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Alex Chrostowski, a student involved in a plethora of activities including cybersecurity, color guard, tech crew, and the American sign language club. However, today I’ll be interviewing them about their experience being on the Boro swim team. 

Q: Overall, how do you think the team’s been doing this season? Do you think it’s an improvement from last year? 

“Last year we were struggling a lot, but this year so far we have already made accomplishments that have not happened for even the coach’s time being here. In our Tuesday meet, both the girls and boys won, which hasn’t happened before, and most of the time when we lost it was due to either disqualifications or sheer numbers. We’re doing fairly well off, and it is a much needed improvement from last year.”

Q: That’s good to hear! On the subject of improvement, do you think being on the swim team has helped you improve your skills or quality of life in some way?

“I think it has helped me realize that everyone learns and exists at their own pace, and that everyone has their own things they are good at. You cannot be good at everything no matter how hard you try, and you cannot do everything.”

Q: On a scale of 1-10, how hard are practices? Or is it something that varies too much to be defined on a scale? 

“I would say that if we are doing endurance/pyramids it is about a 5-6, and if we are practicing techniques it goes down to about a 2-3.”

Q: Would you recommend the school’s swim team to people who have just started swimming competitively? 

“Just started swimming? I would say it is a good way to learn speed, not techniques and how to do things efficiently. Not for someone just starting. If you can’t pick something up, or you need to focus more on a certain part of a stroke to get better at it overall, you don’t have the ability to just keep on trying and get someone to critique your form from practice, we have to keep going. If someone who just started swimming can get someone to critique their form outside of school and to help in some other way, I would say it would be more beneficial than just pulling up to the diving block.”

Q: How often does the team have practices, and do you think that the practice schedule is manageable for someone with a lot of harder classes and extracurricular activities? 

“We have practice almost every day, if it’s not either drylands or meets. I would say I’m handling it fairly well, while taking some stereotypically harder classes, but even so it is a lot less time-consuming than some other sports.”

Q: What is your favorite part about being on the swim team? 

“For one, not drowning, but mostly being able to have something consistent after school every day that I can look forward to and waste any leftover energy in.”

Q: Do you have anything else you would like to say? 

“Another meet next week! Good luck Colonials, and see you around!”