The high school winter sports season ended not too long ago, but with spring games getting canceled left and right due to inclement weather, I’m a little nostalgic for the days of photographing sports exclusively indoors.
Earlier in the winter season, reporter Steve wrote a feature on New Oxford’s swim team, which meant I had the rare opportunity/freedom to photograph a swim meet without worrying about getting action shots of certain swimmers. Here are some photos from that assignment (you can view more here):
© 2015 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. New Oxford swim coach Cheryl Mowery talks to her team before a swim meet at Red Lion on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015. Despite being a small team, New Oxford is competing in Division I for the first time.
© 2015 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. New Oxford’s Alex Pecher, center, prepares to swim the 100-yard butterfly during a swim meet at Red Lion on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015.
© 2015 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. From left, New Oxford’s Hailey Janocha, Madison Smith, Regan Chalk and Rachel Groden put on their swim caps before the 200-yard freestyle relay during a swim meet at Red Lion on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015.
© 2015 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. New Oxford’s Regan Chalk, second from bottom, begins the 100-yard backstroke, which she won, during a swim meet at Red Lion on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015.
© 2015 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. New Oxford’s Alex Pecher, center, lifts himself from out of the pool after swimming the 100-yard breaststroke during a swim meet at Red Lion on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015.
Not too long afterwards, I was assigned another swimming feature — this time, at the 36th annual South Western Relays.
Fun fact: Between the ages of roughly 6 and 11, I was on my neighborhood’s summer swim team. This meant every morning, five days a week, my brothers and I were shipped off to the neighborhood pool for two hours of swim practice. Saturday mornings were spent at the pool again, participating in more specialized clinics. On Mondays, our team would compete in a swim meet against another neighborhood team (there were six or seven teams in whatever league had been formed).
At first, I hated swim team: It subjected me to my first experiences as a victim of bullying and made me feel completely inadequate when, try as the coaches might, I never did learn how to dive properly. Once I became pretty decent at backstroke and butterfly at age 8 or 9 and got moved up to heats 2 and, occasionally, 1, it was all right. But definitely the best part of swim team and the meets was the downtime between races, which was when I’d eat whatever I wanted — especially since my mom would always volunteer to work the concessions booth, and would pay for my Airhead candies, pizza slices and flavored shaved ice.
Photographing the South Western Relays took me back to those swim meets, in a good way, especially once I discovered that even high school swimmers get their races Sharpie’d onto their arms and also pig out between races.
Just a few photos from that assignment (here are more):
© 2015 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. York Suburban swimmer Karl Schmittle, center, puts on his goggles as he and other swimmers enter the natatorium for the 400-yard medley relay on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015, at South Western High School. Hundreds of swimmers competed in the 36th annual South Western Swimming Relays, which featured 21 relay events.
© 2015 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. Event, heat and lane assignments, written in permanent marker, are visible on the forearms of Susquehannock swimmers Ryan Denis, Jade Reall and Allie Reed as they play Cards Against Humanity with teammates during downtime in the gym on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015, at South Western High School.
© 2015 by The York Daily Record/Sunday News. One heat of backstroke-relay swimmers walks around the diving end of the pool as another heat competes on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2015, at South Western High School.
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