After coming off a conference championship in the 2022-2023 season, Greendale Co-op swim is looking to repeat as conference champions. As the season progresses, the swim team hopes to take back their place on the top of the woodland.

Although swimming isn’t one of the more popular mens sports at Greendale High School, the athletes are committed to their craft and are working hard to improve.

So far this year the team has been doing well, getting third in conference relays and they’ve been doing well at invitationals. “This year our swim team is doing quite well, taking 10th out of 29 teams (in reference to a previous invitational) with only 8 swimmers compared to other teams who mostly have 15-20 swimmers,” sophomore Sean Libal said.

Some people would argue that being together on a team with people from your school would be better but people on the Greendale’s Co-op swim team enjoy it due to their small numbers. “I highly enjoy being on a team with Pius and Greenfield,” Libal said. “Due to our small team it truly makes us have a sense of togetherness and it also widens the people you know instead of just staying within your school.” 

As with any other sport, there’s going to be idols. From the casual eye most people would think that Micheal Phelps would be most swimmers idols, but swimmers on the GHS swim team have role models that aren’t really in the spotlight. “Someone I idolize within the sport has to be Caeleb Dressel. I idolize him because he specializes in the events that I do and is the best in the world at those events,” junior Noah Stanford said. “I truly enjoy his work ethic because he balances fun and hard work.”

Some of the swimmers on the team have high hopes for the rest of the season due to the constant effort they put in to improve and become faster. “I am trying to make it to state this year for the 200 medley relay and my 100 back,” Stanford said.

To be a swimmer it requires a lot of determination to improve your times and become a faster swimmer. The thing is as a student athlete, you’re going to have to put the student first at times and that’ll come with some problems. “My biggest challenge this year has been balancing swimming with school,” Stanford said. “I have morning practices that don’t allow me to stay up late enough to do my homework after practice.”

Overall as a group, the team is competitive in all the meets they go into. Even though they’re small, they’re very resilient and won’t back down from any challenge in their way.