Swim Team

After a few visits to Annapolis's Truxtun Park pool in 2005, Jen Bistrack couldn't help thinking more children should be splashing around in there. A coach at the Naval Academy Aquatics Club, she deduced that too few kids knew how to swim -- or knew what they were missing. Bistrack, who does health promotions for the city Department of Recreation and Parks, sent a note to her boss, department director LeeAnn Plumer, asking her thoughts about starting a Truxtun Park swimming team. "I grew up in public swimming programs, very vibrant community programs, so I contacted LeeAnn and asked if she'd be willing to get a team started," Bistrack said.

Michael Phelps , the most-decorated Olympian of all time, is among seven North Baltimore Aquatic Club swimmers named Wednesday to the 2014-15 USA Swimming national team roster. Phelps, who is returning from retirement, made the team in the (100-meter freestyle, 100 backstroke, 100 butterfly and 200 individual medley. He's joined by Chase Kalisz (200 fly, 200 IM, 400 IM); Conor Dwyer (200 free, 200 IM); Matt McLean (200 free, 400 free); Allison Schmitt (200 free); Cierra Runge (400 free, 800 free)

YOU KNOW you have Swim Team Parent Syndrome when you show up at a pool filled with screaming kids, and none of them is yours. That happened to me a few Saturdays back. Our kids were in Kansas, yet I found myself in Baltimore running index cards from one end of the pool to the other as the team that my boys belong to swam against a visiting team. I showed up out of habit, like one of those horses that used to pull milk wagons and routinely stopped at houses on their route. It was a Saturday morning in July, and I knew I was supposed be at a swim meet.

Members of the Fallston Fins Swim Team are in the pool every week in a competitive meet, but next week the competition will be a bit different. Since 2009, the Fins have hosted a swim fundraiser to benefit and remember a lost teammate, Wilson Brady, who was killed in a tragic car accident in Bel Air in November 2008. Brady's mother, Katie, was also killed in the crash. Wilson, known as Wil to friends and family, was a fantastic, lovable 8-year-old who always had a smile on his face and an inherent talent for swimming.

The Harford County YMCA Penguins Swim Team, which spent the past 10 years competing in all its meets on the road, finally got the chance to swim at home, with a little help from four University of Delaware students.As a senior project, four mechanical engineering students designed and built a removable bulkhead and charged only the cost of materials. The bulkhead, delivered near the beginning of the summer, reduced the Penguins' pool in Aberdeen from Olympic-size to the league-required length of 25 yards and gave the 65-member team the chance to hold a home meet for the first time two weeks ago."

The Columbia Clippers Swim Team, a competitive swim club, will hold its annual Swim-a-Thon from 8 p.m. to midnight Saturday at Columbia Swim Center in Wilde Lake Village Center. The team, which has about 350 members ages 6 to 18, expects to swim a total of 817 miles - the equivalent of the distance to Bermuda, said Eileen Clegg. The event is a fund-raiser for five awards to be given to graduating swim team members in memory of Clegg's late husband, John C. Clegg, a volunteer "swim dad" for the Clippers and the Columbia Neighborhood Swim League.

A modest exhibit of photos and words at Havre de Grace High School counters a long-held myth about blacks: that they can't swim."I'm trying to let the kids know they're welcome," said swim coach Aaron Thompson, who set up a display at the school to celebrate Black History Month and to encourage black students to try the sport.There are only three black students among the county's 313 competitive swimmers at the high school level, and two of them, Cher Miller and Justin James, are on the Havre de Grace Warriors swim team.

ON A HUMID Saturday morning back in 1986, my wife and I walked our older son to his initial swim meet. As we got near the pool entrance, the kid balked. He didn't want to swim, he wanted to go home. Tears flowed. Nerves were on edge. Eventually, my wife and I were able to coax the Speedo-clad 6-year-old into swimming. Thus began a 16-year summer saga of Saturdays with the swim team. Since that first Saturday, we have spent hours watching our sons and their teammates on the Bolton Hill Barracudas swim team compete against swim teams at pools throughout the metropolitan Baltimore area.

THE CALENDAR and other reliable sources are letting us know that summer is on the horizon, and the Columbia Association -- which has spent winter days planning the summer swim leagues -- has developed new districts for team placement.Swimmers new to the league will be placed on the team in the district where they live by the Columbia Association's Neighborhood Swim League.New swimmers who do not live in the 13 districts will be placed on the team that is geographically closest to their residence, provided that team is not oversubscribed.

While much of the world prepares to focus on the athletes in Barcelona, turn your field glasses toward the Severna Park YMCA and discover a national championship team in our own back yard.For Nancy Brown, one of life's most stimulating aromas is the pungent smell of chlorine.That's because she spends so much time at the Severna Park YMCA swimming pool, with a whistle in her mouth, a clipboard in her hand and a strategy in her head.In April, Brown led her Severna Park YMCA Masters Swim Team to the championship of the 1992 YMCA Masters Nationals in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.In the process of defeating 1,500 or so other swimmers, the Severna Park team broke 35 YMCA national records.

Nearly 58 years to the day of its grand opening in 1956, Wiltondale Pool hosted its first-ever swim meet on June 30, opening the gates to Campus Cabana's swim team, the Seahorses, of Campus Hills. The grounds were decorated with homemade signs cheering on the Wiltondale Warriors and welcoming Campus Cabana . The marquee meet, which lasted for more than three hours, featured DJ Nick Nesbitt as their announcer, periodic Treat Heats with free food for swimmers, Rita's Ice and a hot dog cart.

Maryland completed its first three-game Atlantic Coast Conference sweep since May 2009 as it downed visiting No. 11 North Carolina State, 5-2, on Sunday. Five Terps scored, and pitchers Tayler Stiles and Bobby Ruse (C. Milton Wright) combined to allow one run on six hits in 62/3 2/3 innings. Maryland (16-6, 5-4 ACC) took a 2-0 lead in the first inning off runs by shortstop Blake Schmit and left fielder Kyle Convissar (Severna Park), and the Wolfpack (14-8, 3-6) never caught up. "I was happy to see us play more consistently this weekend with our offensive approach, and our at-bats were tougher throughout the weekend," coach John Szefc said.

David Harmon,17, has been swimming for eight years for Spy Swimming at the Severna Park Community Center and is in his fourth season on the Archbishop Spalding swim team. In that time he has become a three-time YMCA district champion, a multiple YMCA state and national finalist, an annual Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association championship finalist, and, most recently, a participant at the Junior National Championships in Knoxville, Tenn., where he set personal best times in the 100 (50.16 seconds)

COLLEGE PARK - The announcement that Maryland might reinstate some of its dropped sports surprised most everybody - including athletes who say they still feel betrayed by the cuts and even the man who will co-chair a panel to study the issue. Barry Gossett attended a wedding over the weekend and was still in Florida when he heard - via streaming video - when Maryland president Wallace D. Loh said Monday that the school's entry into the Big Ten may provide enough cash to restore some of the seven sports discontinued June 30. "I thought, 'That's news to me,' " said Gossett, a regent and top donor who is expected to co-chair the commission that will study Maryland's finances and recommend whether some of the teams may be able to return.

Bob Bowman was done, or so he thought. Something of the Michael Phelps Whisperer to the media, he can be counted on for insights, such as on Tuesday night after the Baltimore swimmer became the most decorated Olympian ever after winning a gold medal as anchor of the 4x200-meter freestyle relay team. Bowman delivered. Often emotionally, sometimes sardonically, he offered wisdom on the eventful night and then took off. But he came back. Oh wait, he said, almost forgetting about his other talking point, Allison Schmitt, gold-medal winner and Olympic record-breaker.

Bob Bowman was done, or so he thought. Something of the Michael Phelps Whisperer to the media, he can be counted on for insights, such as on Tuesday night after the Baltimore swimmer became the most decorated Olympian ever after winning a gold medal as anchor of the 4x200-meter freestyle relay team. Bowman delivered. Often emotionally, sometimes sardonically, he offered wisdom on the eventful night and then took off. But he came back. Oh wait, he said, almost forgetting about his other talking point, Allison Schmitt, gold-medal winner and Olympic record-breaker.

This morning, the parents of some 4,400 swimmers will roll out of bed and check the sky. I will be one of them. Today is the summer finale of the Central Maryland Swim League. The team from our neighborhood pool, along with 41 teams from Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll and Howard counties and Baltimore City, will scatter to seven pools for the last big meet of the summer swimming season. Rain is in the forecast.Lightning stops an outdoor swim meet. Thunder stops a meet. But rain does not necessarily stop a meet -- as anyone who stood in last Saturday's "surprise showers" knows.

Anthony Gilmer dreams of becoming an Olympic swimmer. He recently moved a stroke closer to realizing his goal by joining Baltimore's only elementary school swim team.Anthony knows that it won't be easy to reach the Olympics, but the 12-year-old says he wouldn't have a chance at all without the swim team at James McHenry Elementary School. The school does not have a pool and the Southwest Baltimore neighborhood where Anthony lives doesn't have a pool that's open year-round.Twice a week, 20 students are bused from the school at 31 S. Schroeder St. to the Callowhill Aquatics Center on Oakley Avenue in Pimlico for extracurricular swim practice.

It all caught up with University of Maryland swimmers and divers, men's cross country runners, women's water polo players and other athletes young enough to have rarely confronted limits on their talents and dreams. All of the team members had faced losing before. That's part of competition. But by Saturday - the date Maryland set long ago to officially eliminate teams absent an infusion of private funds - many of the athletes had been overtaken by a deeper sort of pain and disappointment.

Harper's Choice, 331; Clemens Crossing, 304 Medley Relays 15-18M: 1. HC (Sikora, Costello, Baldinazzo, Schwartzwalder), 1:58.12. 9-10M: 1. CC (Rodriguez, Kelly, Caine, Oliver), 1:16.53. 11-12M: 1. HC (Tuttle, Vance, Costello, Lesho), 2:12.04. 13-14M: 1. CC (McCarty, Murphy, Maghak, Yamamoto), 2:13.67. Individual Medley 15-18B: 1. Sikora, HC, 1:02.34; 2. DeBoissiere, CC; 3. Manseur, HC. 15-18G: 1. Baldinazzo, HC, 1:06.97; 2. Elshafei, CC; 3. Solomotis, CC. 9-10B: 1. Oliver, CC, 1:32.12; 2. Costa-Shell, HC; 3. Wu, HC. 9-10G: 1. Bartlett, HC, 1:16.40; 2. Baldinazzo, HC; 3. Wilson, CC. 11-12B: 1. Elshafei, CC, 1:08.48; 2. Tuttle, HC; 3. Dougherty, HC. 11-12G: 1. Vance, HC, 1:09.93; 2. Eidson, CC; 3. Hanson, HC. 13-14B: 1. Baldinazzo, HC, 1:05.78; 2. McCarty, CC; 3. Rosicky, CC. 13-14G: 1. Freal, HC, 1:14.