As they jump into the water, swimmers at the Bolles School race to match records displayed on a board on the pool deck. Some of those records were set by Olympians including Caeleb Dressel.
“It’s something to work towards every day because you want your name up on there one day too,” swimmer Jacob Pishko said.
Dressel didn’t go to The Bolles School, but swam for the club team. Most recently, he beat Michael Phelps’ record for the fastest butterfly, and took home eight medals at the World Swimming Championships. Swimmers at his home pool watched the races at practice.
“We had a group of 15 or 20 athletes huddled around a cell phone watching his 100 free and cheering him and just marveling at how amazing he was performing and how well he was doing,” current Bolles coach Peter Verhoef said.
“It was fun to have that moment at our practice, to sit and watch somebody succeeding at an international level that used to be in the pool right here,” Verhoef said.
“Watching him is kind of like watching poetry in motion, so you always want to cheer on a former Bolles teammate and especially someone as good as him,” Covington said.
Coach Verhoef is using Dressel's success and humility to teach his swimmers.
“He wasn’t just a swimmer. He wasn’t just a freestyler. He wasn’t just a trainer. He was a great athlete throughout our whole program,” Verhoef said.
“The way he gets off the starting block, the way he gets to his turns, and it gives us here the sense of, ‘hey, that’s what it takes to be really good. How can we talk about that in practice? How can we coach those skills,’” Verhoef said.
Dressel is one of several athletes from the program that has been to the Olympics. According to Verhoef, since 1972, the school has sent almost 60 swimmers to the Olympics.
“It’s definitely something that we’ve taken a lot of pride in as part of what we do here at the school, is prepare them for that Olympic journey and that Olympic pathway,” Verhoef said.
As they train for their next competitions, the swimmers said they don’t take who has swum before them for granted.
“He’s one of the best swimmers in the world right now and it’s very cool [to swim where he trained],” Pishko said.
“It’s definitely surreal because you realize how much greatness is in the pool and coming here every day is kind of a dream,” Covington said.
Covington, Pishko and their teammates said they’ll be cheering Dressel on all the way to Tokyo next year.