Welcome to Campus!

Tomorrow our incoming freshmen arrive for orientation! I look forward to seeing our newest team members and their families this week. After a summer of recruiting, swim camps, planning, and watching pools do their thing, it’s exciting to know our swimmers will be back in school next week and a new season is upon us.

For a few weeks our returning swimmers have been popping back onto campus. The reunions have been grand and this Olympic summer has put everyone in a seriously motivated frame of mind. Now the fun begins!

Gold Medal moments of August

If there was ever any doubt about the value of a good finish, surely we've learned our lesson. The Lezak freestyle relay anchor leg and Phelps' 100 Fly were tight enough to knock a person off his couch in anticipation. I was reminded of the finger tip margins in great 50 Free duels between Tom Jager and Matt Biondi, the great American heroes of my swimming youth.

The pundits and journalists deign to call this the best Olympics ever and, as a swim coach and swimmer, it's hard not to agree. As I watch the U.S. women win the mile relay on the track, I am sad to see the competition drawing soon to a close, but I have to say I welcome the end of my sleep deprivation.

"What I did on my summer vacation!" Part 5: Erik Khazoyan, Freshman

The highlight of my summer so far has been going to Europe and spending 12 days travelling through Switzerland, Italy and France. Some of my favorite moments included: swimming in Lake Lucerne at night which was cold but was really refreshing and relaxing to float in the lake and stare at the stars and commune with nature. Switzerland was beautiful and Lucerne is a great city.

Venice and Florence are also amazing cities. In Venice, we saw a thunder storm and were in the middle of the laguna on a water taxi during the storm; it was really intense. Eze was also absolutely gorgeous and for those who do not know of Eze, it is this little old hilltop village that looks down on the Mediterranean and near Nice in the South of France. Then on to Paris.

Since I have been back from my Europe trip, I have been working at a pool and getting ready for school. But now, I am looking forward to meeting all of you.

"What I did on my summer vacation!" Part 4: Zach Yeager, Senior

I love the team blog! What a great idea Chris. This summer was a blast. I learned all about nutrition with Koy, studied Yoga with Chris, worked at the Nike swim camps with Cat, Sarit, Koy, and Mandy, watched the Olympic trials in Eugene, and then went to Philosophy camp in Boulder, CO for a month!

It wasn't really philosophy camp but almost. CU puts on a seminar for undergrads in philosophy every summer. They bring in a bunch of amazing professors from all over the country to lecture on their specialties. It was a lot of fun but I'm not looking forward to the twenty page paper I still have to write. As for the rest of the summer I'll be getting ready for the XC season, that is, when I can pull myself away from the Olympics. I'm so excited! I hope everyone else is having a great summer as well and looking forward to swimming as much as I am.
See you soon, Zach

"What I did on my summer vacation!" Part 3: Elle Stark & Claire Jordan, Sophomores

Claire took a break from nannying and long course training and Elle from guiding raft tours outside Aspen, CO so they could spend part of July in the Hawaiian islands. See them here communing with nature and one another...

"What I did on my summer vacation!" Part 2: Sam Palmer, Senior

it's been a glorious summer for me out in the boonies of california rafting on the american river. i've spent my days working on the south fork and training for the class IV middle fork river which i finally am running commercially as of last week!! if you don't know what it's all about you should look for it online and even come up rafting with me! i love the days here even though they are super long and hot.

sad for the summer to be closing but super stoked to be moving up to portland in about a week. i'm running the Raft The Deschutes NSO trip so you freshmen better watch out. either way we should plan a team trip some time in september before it gets too late. i'm going to go catch the last hot part of the day and make some dinner, but to all, welcome to Lewis and Clark College and especially the Pioneer Swim Team. you're in for a real treat.