Swimming, diving teams faced with adversity after closing of Hamilton Pool

After Hamilton Pool closed at the beginning of this semester, many students were concerned: Would the pool ever reopen its door? Would the university be forced to build a new facility? Neither. Following a successful repair to a crack in its structure, the pool reopens today with regular hours.

“During pool draining and cleaning over winter break, the technicians found a crack in the bottom of the pool that needed to be repaired before filling the pool with water again,” senior swimmer Priyanka Bhargava said.

But the reopening did not come in time for the Tufts swimming and diving teams’ regular season, which ended last month with the NESCAC Swimming and Diving Championships. Without a pool to practice in at Tufts, the teams had to make other arrangements.

“We had just finished one of the last practices of training trip down in Florida, and our coach sat us down for a meeting,” senior swimmer Laura Burns said. “At first, it was more [of a] concern [for us] over the undesirable practice times, as we had to swim at undesirable hours, and [a] concern over what this would mean for the end of the season.”

Practices were held at both MIT and Mystic Valley Regional Charter School — each 15 to 20 minutes away from campus. Since these pools already had schedules set for this winter, the available hours for Tufts’ teams were mostly inconvenient, according to Burns.

“We had to commute to Mystic Valley Charter High School at 5:30 a.m. and [to] MIT at 9 p.m. for practices, and our home meets were held at our competitors’ pools,” Burns said. “The times made it difficult to do night practice one day and morning practice the next, since there was only about six hours in between. Obviously that made it tough for people to fit practices in their schedules and still allow for adequate rest.”

Under normal circumstances, there are four different practices that both the men and women can attend to accommodate the large group of student-athletes and their schedules. Without this system in place, Burns said, it was tougher to practice because there were quite crowded lanes.

“There is not a lot I can add to this except how impressed I have been with the attitudes of our women’s and men’s swim teams and their coaches for the positive way they have handled this unexpected circumstance,” Assistant Director of Athletics John Casey said. “They have been nothing short of spectacular with their attitudes and resilience.”

Bhargava echoed Casey’s sentiments regarding the team’s challenges.

“We have a strong and united team,” Bhargava said. “We were given our options and had to rise to the occasion. We didn’t have a choice but to be okay with the situation, and I definitely believe that we grew stronger as a team because of it.”

Although adjusting to the new situation meant practicing at different facilities and at different times, neither team received any preferential treatment over the other, Burns said.

“The men’s and women’s teams practice as one unit, so I would say that both were affected about equally,” Burns said.

Bhargava described one benefit of the relocation for the swimmers: the MIT facilities.

“I don’t think anyone was upset about swimming at MIT,” Bhargava said. “Their facilities are amazing and so much larger than our pool. The Tufts pool is six lanes, which basically means it’s impossible to fit our entire team in it. MIT is much, much larger so there is room to spread out and actually swim without smashing into each other.”

“The divers already practice there because we don’t have a three [meter] diving board or a separate diving well at Tufts,” she added. “So it was nice to unite with the divers.”

While many team members enjoyed the larger facilities, the senior athletes, in particular, missed swimming on their home turf for their final season. According to Burns, the seniors did not have the senior night that normally takes place during their last home meet. Despite less than ideal circumstances for their last season at Tufts, seniors worked hard to keep the team’s morale afloat, according to men’s team senior tri-captain Austin Wood.

“We knew that the team was kind of getting down, so we tried to have as many social events as possible ... like a pasta dinner before one of the big meets and another one before NESCACs,” he said. “We worked harder this year than we ever have, and we reaped the benefits at NESCACs. I think the seniors did an awesome job this year, and the legacy we left behind really sets the team on the right path for continued success.”

Freshman swimmer Adam Hotaling also described the resilience of the team, who chanted “No pool, no problem” at the NESCAC Championships this year.

“Pool or no pool, we came into this season with goals, and it would be a waste of a season to just give up or make excuses just because we couldn’t practice at our home pool,” he said. “We may have gone into this home stretch in the face of adversity, but we did our best to just ignore it.”

The team’s optimistic attitude paid off. The men’s team placed fourth overall at the NESCAC Championships, and broke six school records. The women’s team scored seventh overall as a team, and senior swimmer Jenny Hu broke three school records.

“I don’t think that the pool situation affected our performance,” junior swimmer Scarlett Hao said. “The bottom line is that we’re swimmers, and we can swim anywhere that has water.”