[monster]

So here's one ....or two.

This year, one of the swimmers from our itsy bitsy 20yard summer pool team broke a longstanding record for the 50 fly for 11/12yo boys at county championships. (He then went on to break the state record the next week, but that's a different story)

One of our swim moms tracked down the guy who set the previous record thirty-something years ago.

He wrote a letter to our new champ:

Dear AJ,
I wanted to write and congratulate you on breaking the WISC 11-12 50 fly record. It might not have been the oldest record in the books, but it was a pretty big deal for me. After 30+ years, this was the last of my swimming records left at any level. At one point I held a number of 11-12 and 13-14 butterfly and freestyle state and zone records, which led to national age group championships, state titles at Huron, trips to junior nationals, and a lifelong love of swimming.

But even with all that, WISC was always special to me. I loved being part of a summer club team, and was especially proud of the success we had at Orchard Hills, which like Forestbrooke, has always been one of the “little” clubs in WISC. All of my success started from our little kidney bean shaped pool at OHAC, so I am especially happy that a fellow “little” pool swimmer broke my last record.

You are part of a long and proud tradition of swimming in Ann Arbor. I don’t know if you noticed that the other “old” 11-12 record broken this year was held by one of my best swimming friends, Tom Bailey, who was also a Forestbrooke kid. We were part of a group of “little” pool kids that ended up winning a couple of state championships at Huron, so the bar is set pretty high for you. I look forward to following your swimming career, wish you continued success, and hope you are able to experience all the joy, fun, and camaraderie that I was able to have as a swimmer.

Best of luck, Mark Loveland