From the outside, swimming seems like nothing more than a leisurely summer activity, but in reality, the New Providence High School swim team works hard and relentlessly to improve in the pool. As the fall sports season ends, they are preparing to make a splash during their 2023 season.
Coaches Brian Cooper and Walter Kempner have a lot planned for this season.
Cooper, the boys coach, is finding that he has more opportunities now that the roster has grown this year from about 15 boys to about 30 boys. Now that he has more boys on his roster, Cooper has the opportunity to help more swimmers improve and succeed during their meets.
He said: “My goal for this year is to have three swimmers, the maximum [amount of] swimmers in each race [during each swim meet.]”
The 2023 roster is made up of a wide variety of swimmers: the less experienced swimmers that are swimming just for the joy of it and to exercise, and the more experienced swimmers that are a member of a club swim team. This wide skill range can pose a challenge to Cooper and Kempner’s practice structures, but they have come to adapt.
Kempner, the girls coach, wants each and every swimmer to get the most they can out of every practice and finds that it is the best to “set up lanes based on ability levels and try to really just hone in on what skills would be best for those groups that are working, whether it’s going to be just basic fundamentals or conditioning and race preparations.”
Michael Bradford is a freshman and does not swim for a club swim team, but he is just as excited for this season as any other swimmer on the team.
He said he likes “being in the water and getting to swim. One of [his] goals on the swim team [is to become] a better swimmer and [go] faster this year.”
This progress will be aided by the way each practice is structured by the coaches to target different essential skills and aspects of swimming and provide a well-rounded workout.
Cooper said that during practice, “we’ll take two approaches. One approach we’ll work on is skill and technique. And then, the other side of swimming is just working on pure endurance and that’s just keeping you moving and keeping you going.”
Swimming is a very versatile sport that requires many different skills and strengths. Cooper and Kempner prepare for their meets by making sure that their swimmers are confident in all different types of events by formulating sets and drills that will target places of struggle and essential skills.
In the end, all of the practices, critiques, and improvements prepare the NPHS swim team for success at their meets.
In the past, the team has swam well and advanced far in their tournaments. Success in recent years influences Cooper and Kempner’s aspirations for this year’s coming season.
Kempner said: “We’ve always had a couple year-around swimmers that have been pretty solid and there were some times in some years where at our Union County meet, we won almost all the events and I remember one time about maybe seven or eight years ago, New Providence held about seven out of the eleven records for our county.”
Kempner wants to overcome “some powerful foes like Westfield and Scotch Plains and Summit” and Governor Livingston and “try to get a position in the postseason tournament and try to compete there, which [New Providence] qualified for last year.”
Similarly, Cooper wants to make it far in the sectional tournament and “try to take a group of athletes to the Meet of Champions.”
More important, however, is to help the NPHS swimmers improve, because, as Cooper said: “it’s going to be a growing year for” the NPHS swim team.
Sebastian Mercado, a sophomore that swims for the Jersey Aquatic Center, reflected upon his experience last year on the swim team.
He said: “It was a pretty good community. It was pretty fun. It’s really nice to be around a bunch of guys doing the same sport as you.”
One way the swim team supports itself as a functional community is through student leaders like Maya Sternberg, a senior captain.
Sternberg said: “I’m in charge of organizing the team and I’m planning all of the team activities. As captain, I help make sure the team is a community. We support each other. I keep the team spirit up, and I think that’s important because if the team is happy, they will perform better.”