The University of Rhode Island club swim team held the inaugural Rhody College Club Swim and U.S. Masters Swim Meet on Nov. 12, an event the club described as monumental in showcasing what their program is all about.
This meet, held at the Tootell Aquatic Center, brought together members from both college club swimming and U.S. Masters Swimming. U.S. Masters is a competitive swimming organization made up mostly of college alumni, and provides an opportunity for the program to reach and compete against a larger group.
“It was the first meet to bridge the gap between the college club scene and U.S. Masters,” team captain Ben Thomas said. “It was a really good experience and everyone was super welcoming.”
There was a lot of planning and preparation that had to go into making this meet happen, starting months ago. Casey McQuesten, president of the club for about a year and a half, met with Doug Sayles over the summer, a member of Swim Across America who also works heavily with Masters Swimming in New England.
“We worked together on a vision of having this split meet between College Club Swimming and Masters Swimming members,” McQuesten said. “The idea was to show the rest of the league what our club here at URI is capable of, while also providing a high value meet to Masters Swimming.”
The capability to hold a meet of this magnitude really exemplifies the growth of this club just in the past few months. McQuesten discussed the change in mindset from when he originally took over as president to now.
“Last year, our goals were really just getting through the year and getting to nationals,” McQuesten said. “But, coming into this year I saw the club could really grow in more ways than one.”
Another large piece of this growth was focusing on trying to connect with alumni from URI, according to McQuesten. A large group of the Masters Swimming organization in this area comes from former members of the men’s varsity team that was cut from the school in 2009. This meet allowed the club team to reconnect with some of these members.
Aside from this event last month, the team has had a lot of success both in numbers and in performance throughout the fall semester. The team has 60 members currently, which is the largest number the club has seen. This includes a mix of new members and is helped by the fact that they were able to retain over a third of the team from a year ago.
Performance wise, the team has also grown in a significant way this year, according to Thomas, specifically in the number of swimmers that have qualified for College Club Swimming Nationals that will be held at Indiana University in April.
“Everyone who made Nationals last year, 10 or 11, have already qualified along with four new qualifiers already,” Thomas said. “Compared to this time last year, we only had two or three qualified.”
Not only are these kinds of events a great experience for the swimmers to participate at the highest stage, but it also helps build comradery among the members of the team.
“Each trip becomes memorable because you add new members to grow within that circle,” Thomas said. “We’re able to stay together in a house or hotel and it can really help the chemistry carried outside of just swim.”
Along with Nationals, the team is planning and fundraising for a trip to the University of Maine during the spring semester. A big part of the focus now becomes trying to keep this group together and continue their growth.
“The biggest goal is to retain everyone that came in the fall,” Thomas said. “We did a really good job of having a lot of unique events to keep people interested, but I know with club sports after winter break it’s sometimes tough.”
An encouraging sign for the team is the fact that they have had over a 50% increase in commits to both semesters as opposed to just one, according to McQuesten.
With plenty to look forward to in the spring, the University of Rhode Island club swim team will look to build off the momentum of this unique event and continue to take the program to new levels.