JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Olympics feature the best athletes on the planet and at least in the pool, many of those athletes have direct ties to Jacksonville. The Bolles School and it’s club swim team have produced more than 60 Olympic swimmers and many of them, like 2013 grad Ryan Murphy, went on to win gold medals.
We are exactly one year out from the start of the 2024 Olympics in Paris and The Bolles School hopes that one day some of their current athletes will become Olympians. The Bolles School has an extremely proud history when it comes to Olympic swimming and there are plenty of reminders of greatness for the current swimmers at Bolles.
It’s a typical day of practice for the varsity swim team at Bolles and a typical day of practice means hard work to live up to a standard that has been decades in the making.
"Diving in with the Bolles cap, that tradition is present and the kids know about it,” said Bolles assistant coach Jake Gibbons, “so we don't have to do too much talking, they get excited themselves and motivate themselves."
Just outside of the pool is the Murphy Olympic Walk where plaques honor the more than 60 Bolles athletes who have competed in the Olympics all the way back to Fred Tyler, who won gold in 1972.
"When we walk by that wall every day for practice it reminds us that we have a tradition here of excellence and we want to achieve that," said Bolles senior Carter Lancaster, who is also a school record holder in a number of events… just like Olympic gold medalist and Bolles alum Ryan Murphy.
“I’ve been watching the Olympics since I was little,” said Lancaster, “it’s always been a dream to go to the Olympics one day.”
Simany Lee is also a senior at Bolles, she’s also a record holder at the school and is inspired by the Bolles swimmers who came before her.
"I almost use it as motivation to know that I come in here everyday, sometimes twice a day, and I swim,” said Lee, “and these people did the same thing and found great success and I see it as motivating."
Some of the Bolles athletes who found success after the long hours of practice in the pool are gold medalists Caleb Dressel and Joseph Schooling, who were also teammates of current Bolles assistant coach Jake Gibbons.
"You could tell those guys were special,” said Gibbons, “they could pick and choose when they'd beat anybody and everybody in the pool."
There’s plenty of room on the Murphy Olympic Walk for the next generation of Olympic swimmers from Bolles to continue the standard of success.