Alexis Smith

Past Entries

Entry 1

Entry 2

Entry 3

November 8, 2004

Last weekend proved to be the most exciting yet for the Emory squad. Parkas were brought out and hats and gloves were donned as we trekked from Atlanta to Pittsburgh for our first quad meet of the season. The weather that welcomed us Friday night reminded many of us why we decided to travel south to go to school in the first place.

Bright and early Saturday morning we headed to the pool to cheer on our milers as they set the tone in the first race against our competition from Carnegie Mellon University (Pa.), Johns Hopkins University (Md.), and Case Western Reserve University (Ohio). Leigh Campbell won the event with an automatic national qualifying time of 17:18.71.

Leigh had the rest of the team up on their feet cheering for her and when Nick Lake and Dan Weissman finished 1-2 in the men's mile immediately afterwards, the energy level was amazing. We had succeeded in coming into the meet and making a statement that we weren't afraid to get after our races, even if we were tired, and that we were going to be the ones to set the standard of competition for the weekend.

The energy carried us through the four-session format of the meet, with Emory swimmers posting numerous in-season best times at a point in the season where that is not an easy feat. We also got to make friends with some Philadelphia Eagles fans staying in our hotel, and we had the chance to cheer on the Emory men's and women's soccer teams who were competing for the UAA championship on the field directly outside the pool we were racing in.

The best part of the weekend? No team warm down. After every meet, we warm down as a team, inevitably doing more yardage than we would choose to on our own, but not this time!

In his usual fashion, Jon booked us a flight home that left from the Pittsburgh airport less than two hours after the meet was supposed to end. Even so, he was going to try to have us warm down together, but we talked some sense into him and made our flight with 10 whole minutes to spare!

Now safely back in ATL, a special thank you goes to the parents who came to the meet to cheer us on, and who provided a wonderfully delicious dinner (complete with about 15 different dessert choices… amazing, I know) for us after Saturday night's session. We really appreciate how much you do for our team.

Alexis Smith is a sophomore from Strafford, N.H. She would love to answer e-mail questions from Emory recruits and fans.