Men's swim team deserves more credit

After venting about the dismal record of WPI's sports teams a couple of weeks ago, I expected to get some backlash. Andy Kern '01, co-captain of the men's swim team, took the bait and fired off a great letter to the editor last week. He brought up some good points, which I have addressed here.

"Mr. Newcomb... apparently forgot to mention the fact that the Men's Swim Team has a record of 4-2 (which is the only winning varsity sports team right now, by the way)."

First off, I was impressed that someone called me Mr. Newcomb. It's irrelevant, but I liked the sound of it anyway. But yes, Andy, I did neglect to mention that tidbit of information, and I apologize. What else can I say? I goofed.

"the swim team... has only been mentioned once... try looking up how many times we got an article detailing our accomplishments of our 99-00 season."

I am guilty here again, but not by choice. The reason nothing more than a score usually gets mentioned is due to any editor's enemy: deadlines. The Tech News deadline is Friday at 5pm, but I have some discretion and can get stories in later in order to cover Saturday events. However, since all of the swim meets are away (due to the fact that we do not have a regulation-sized pool, as Kern noted in his letter), the results do not get to me in time, and I am forced to submit the only data I have.

This weekend, I did get the results early, although unfortunately neither the men nor the women were victorious at Brandeis University last Saturday. Individual winners on the women's side were Lyndsay DeRocher (500 Freestyle), Lyn Hull (50 Freestyle and 100 Freestyle), Kate Johnson (100 Backstroke and 200 IM), and Liz Mills (100 Butterfly). The team lost the meet, 130-116, bringing their record to 3-7 on the season.The men also swam well but fell just short, losing 152-131 to fall to 4-3 overall (but still the only WPI team with a winning record!). Ryan Drasher (1000 Freestyle, 200 Backstroke, 200 IM), Scot Junkin (100 Backstroke), and Matt McCue (200 Butterfly) were individual winners. And, by some chance of fate, Andy Kern and Chris Gallagher claimed first place in the 200 Freestyle, with identical times of 1:57.45.

Regarding the 99-00 swim team in the school paper, it was mentioned just as many times as any other fall or winter sport that year: zero. There was no sports section of Newspeak (as it was called back in those days) at the time. I jumped in as the lone sportswriter last spring because nobody else had been doing it for two years.

"WPI's athletes are sub par (or at least Mr. Newcomb seems to think so)... I, like many other WPI athletes, come into practice every single day and give my all for my team and my school. That's something that not everyone here at this school can honestly say."

I do not believe WPI's athletes are sub par, or even par for that matter! WPI athletes are nothing short of spectacular. Balancing such an insane schedule (find me another school that crams difficult courses into 7-week increments!) with athletics is quite an accomplishment. Nothing-not records, statistics, trophies, and especially not "fluff" press releases such as the one that magically appeared on the WPI website the day after my original article-can quantify the amount of time and effort each and every WPI student-athlete contributes to this school.

I have received many complaints over the past year from team members upset that their squad did not get mentioned in the paper. Each time, I suggest that they submit something to me-results, stats, scores, notes, whatever they think would be useful-with the promise that I will do my best to publish it. If you would like to write a story (or several), just e-mail it to me (sports@technews.wpi.edu) by Saturday and I will try to get it in the following week's paper. With a one-person writing staff, it's difficult to cover every event, every week, for every paper. But hey, at least I'm trying.