What events do each of you swim?

Jack Redell: I swim the [50-me- ter] freestyle, 100 breaststroke, and the 200 breaststroke.
Luke Harrison: I do the 100 fly and the 200 fly.

Give me a recap of the season.

JR: The season went well. We saw improvements across the board on the men’s and women’s [teams]. The women’s team broke three or four school records and everyone on the men’s team had at least one [personal] best time this season. There was definitely im- provement. The women’s team was very focused on scoring well at [the conference meet] this year because they have a strong base of fresh- men. The men’s team was more focused on individual success. Our team is very small — we don’t have a senior class at all. Given the nu- merical disadvantage, we all had individual success, and that means we had a pretty successful season.

What was the high point of the season for each of you?

LH: For me personally, I was gone last semester studying abroad, so being able to come back and jump in with the team was great in and of itself. I had a per- sonal best in the fly, which I was very happy about. More broadly, it was really cool to bring in a good group of new freshman guys. They’re very promising.

JR: Good kids.

LH: We’ll be able to set a foun- dation for success in the years to come.

JR: For our conference meet, like our championship meet, we get more rest before the races. That prepares us to swim really fast; intense high and it’s nice to have.
LH: New freshmen are fun. We get to watch them flounder around for a little bit, but then you make new teammates and new friends.
JR: There are always freshmen that are a little bit behind, and they work really hard to catch up and that’s really nice to see. There’s also the freshman over- achiever that comes in and that’s great. We love to work hard, but it’s fun to see how that plays out.

What is your favorite part about swimming at Oberlin?

LH: Free pizza.
JR: We just got a sweet [swim- suit] dryer.
LH: Oh man, gotta talk about the suit dryer.
JR: It’s a little spinning thing, and you throw your suit in there and it’s not terrible and wet when you put it back on for your second practice of the day. Also, there aren’t many sports where you get to run around in a Speedo.

What spirit animal do you think represents Oberlin swimming?

JR: Merman.
LH: Yeah, merman. They’re aquatic mammals.
JR: Legend states that mer- men tend to have great muscle definition, and that is something that is very common on the swim team.
LH: We tend to glisten.

Any last words?

JR: If one enjoys the concepts of nudity and loud noise, then swim meets are definitely good for those things. The more the merrier. I guess the final word of advice to those out there would be to watch out for bears.