Diary

Alexis
Smith

Past Entries

November 22, 2004

Assistant coach Dan Silverfield, who swam for Jon for four years during his career at Emory, summed up Saturday morning's practice with the comment, "Jon Howell's stock is through the roof right now."

Saturday morning was our first opportunity of the season for a "get out swim." The way it works is we swim warm-ups and a pre-set. We then all get up and race a specific event from the blocks.

Before practice, Jon will have already chosen six people and given them goal times in the event. Goal times range from best in-season times to lifetime best times, but the trick is that no one knows which six people he has picked or what the goal times are until after the races are over, forcing everyone to go all out. If four out of the six people make their goal times, then practice is over early. If not, we do another set and then get up and race again. There are three sets total and three races.

This time the races were 200 free, 100 fly, and 50 breast. I don't remember what the races were last year, but I do know that we didn't make enough goal times on the earlier races and we ended up having to do the entire practice anyway--most disappointing "get out swim" day ever.

This year was a different story entirely. Everyone was excited and got behind other peoples' lanes to cheer them on. Of the original six Jon chose, three of them made their goal times, but there was one heat left to race. Jon's baby girl must have slept through the night the night before because he was in an amazingly generous mood and decided that he would pick another person from the final heat, and give us an extra chance to get out early.

As a side note, it needs to be said that we should have gotten out after the original six swimmers. Nick Lake's best in-season 200 free time is 1:52 and Jon made his goal time 1:48.0… he went 1:49.3, three seconds faster than his best in-season time ever, and it didn't count!

The final heat was three freshmen boys going head to head. Jon picked Stefan Mianowski (affectionately called Silk) and waited until the boys reached the 100 before setting his goal time so that he had an even greater chance of being under it. The team was going nuts, screaming and cheering and banging kickboards on the blocks. When Silk came in a tenth over his goal time and Jon saw the watch, he paused and then actually said, "Alright, I'll give it to him."

Are you feeing okay, Jon?

Well, there was no way we were going to argue with his statement. We rejoiced and got to head to breakfast an hour early. On my way out I heard Dan Silverfield still laughing and saying, "How popular is Jon Howell right now?"

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