Kyle Ahlgren’s Huge Illinois High School Boys’ Swimming Preview

In preparation for the official beginning of the Illinois Boys’ High School season, which is officially on November 25th, Kyle Ahlgren has put together the best preview that you’ll ever read for the year.

The State of Illinois has crowned a team champion in boys’ swimming each year since the Hoover Administration, and all but one has come from Chicago or its suburbs.  Although the state’s borders reach farther south than Richmond, Virginia and Wichita, Kansas, all of its 84 team champions have resided well north of Interstate 80.  This is not to say that “Downstate”[1] Illinois lacks swimming talent;  the annals of Illinois swimming are teeming with spectacular performers and performances from far beyond Chicago’s exurbia.

What follows is a brief history of great performances from Downstate swimmers at the Illinois High School Boys’ State Meet,[2] a discussion of why this tradition has seldom translated into team success, and a preview of the 2013-14 season, which starts November 25 and will feature the first Downstate team in recent memory – University High School, Normal – with a clear chance to win it all.  I’m not sure if Illinois has an equivalent to “Hoosiers”, but a story is brewing in the hinterland that may be worthy of the 1986 film bearing that name.  Will the Pioneers of U-High, Normal (enrollment 600) cut down the proverbial nets on March 1, or will a powerhouse program from the Big City beat back the insurgency?  Stay tuned, and tell Gene Hackman to bring his tape measure.

The Tradition of Downstate Illinois Superstars

There has always been a certain mystique surrounding the top Downstate swimmers as they arrived on deck for the Illinois High School State Meet.  In the pre-internet years, the heat sheet for Friday afternoon’s Prelim session was often the Chicago Area swimming community’s first introduction to big Downstate names.  Top swimmers from the Chicago Area schools sometimes learned of new, serious rivals just days or even hours before the big race.  In some cases, Downstate swimmers made waves at the club level not in the Illinois LSC, but the Ozark LSC.

At the State Meet, the entries for many Downstate stars were punctuated by asterisks, indicating that the swimmer represented a school that did not support a team, and therefore would not be eligible to score team points.  These were lone wolves trekking in from afar with the ability to scramble the (presumed) natural order of things.  Would they taper?  Would they shave?  Or did they just ride five hours in a coach’s car for some good races in a cool pool (scroll to #8 in SWIMSWAM’s Top 10 Must-Visit Sites for a Swim Meet in the United States)?

Even in the internet era, Chicago Area swimmers, coaches and parents might be forgiven for their surprise at the results of Downstate Sectional Meets (in Illinois, swimmers qualify for the State Meet at Sectionals held in locations across the state six days earlier);  only a regular reader of several Downstate newspapers might get a reasonably complete picture of what’s going on out there during the season.  In an age of steep newsroom budget cuts, even this degree of due diligence may not be rewarded.

Downstate swimmers have often slipped quietly into the State Meet only to take it over.  All three boys who have four-peated in an individual event in Illinois were from Downstate:  Robert McAdam (Decatur MacArthur, 100 Breast, ’78-’81), Tom Jager (Collinsville, 100 Back,  ’79-’82) and Matt Elliott (Peoria Richwoods, 200 IM, ’08-’11).

Edit: Matt Elliott four-peated in the 200 IM, not the 100 breast.

In 1969, Marc Gilliam of Rock Island lowered his own 100 Fly record to 51.3 – no previous butterfly champion had broken 53.  The 100 Fly record later stood at 49.99 for an eternity (from 1978 until 1995)[3], before Tucker Shade of Decatur MacArthur went 49.54.  Six years passed before another Illinois boy cracked 50 seconds – this time it was Dan Trupin of Champaign Central in 48.69.

In 1972, Gib Leach of Peoria Richwoods became the first Illinois swimmer to break a minute in the 100 Breast (59.943, which is not a typo; with science and technology enjoying a popular ascendancy after the moon landings, there was an attempt in the early-to-mid 1970s to measure swimming performances to the thousandths).  By 1981, Robert McAdam of Decatur MacArthur had lowered the breaststroke record to 56.31 (neither of the ensuing two state champions broke 59).  Matt Elliott of Peoria Richwoods escorted the record down to a blistering 53.80 in 2011 after a decade in which most champions went 56 or 57.

In 1982, future Olympian and world record holder Tom Jager of Collinsville lowered the 100 Free record from 46.23 (set by fellow Downstater Chris Shaw the previous year) to 44.57.  Jager also established a state record in the 100 Back (50.14) that was more than two seconds faster than any pre-Jager champion and would stand for 15 years.  It took another Downstater – James Wike of Sterling – to crash the 50 second barrier (49.38 in 2001).

Sam McAdam of Decatur MacArthur held the record in the 200 IM (1:52.45) from 1983 to 1993, when Seth Dunscomb of Sullivan went 1:51.81.  Dunscomb’s performance followed four years of Chicago Area champions who swam in the 1:54/1:55 range.  Champaign Central’s Dan Trupin later sustained an assault on the IM record that ended with a swim of 1:48.15 in 2001, where the record stands today.

The tradition continues.  This season, it is unlikely that any Illinois swimmer will outshine NC State-bound Ryan Held of Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin, who is the reigning YMCA National Champion in the short course 50 Free (19.92) and 100 Free (43.91).

Why Downstate Illinois Has Seldom Produced Top Teams

With this rich history of dominant performances from Downstate Illinois swimmers, it may be surprising to learn that the only team champion to come from outside greater Chicago was the 1933 team from Rockford Central High School.  One might have expected more Downstate teams to break through, particularly given that Illinois has clung to a leveling format that limits finals to 12 places and holds teams to two entries per individual event.  In many years, a Downstate team with a couple superstars and a few solid contributors might have snuck past the field.  It hasn’t happened.

With the exception of the 1933 Rockford Central team and second place teams from Rockford East (1951) and Peoria Richwoods (1972), every team champion and runner-up has come from the Chicago Area.[4]  With the exception of a superb 1997 team from Champaign Central, no Downstate team in the modern era has come within 32 points of the champion.

The structural reasons for the dominance of the Chicago Area teams are clear.  The population of the Chicago Urban Agglomeration is approximately 9.5 million, representing nearly three-fourths of the population of the entire State of Illinois.  In a state that does not divide its swim teams into classes, this places a heavy thumb on the scale in favor of the big schools up North.  The combined population of three downstate cities with deep swimming traditions – Edwardsville, Freeport and Carbondale – is roughly equal to that of suburban Evanston alone.  New Trier, winner of 7 of the last 10 Illinois State Meets and owner of the National Public High School Record in the 400 Freestyle Relay (2:59.76 in 2012), boasts an enrollment of over 4,100 students.  The only other schools to win the team championship since New Trier began its recent run are fellow behemoths Naperville Central (enrollment 3,056), Neuqua Valley (enrollment 4,778) and Evanston (enrollment 3,155).

Mega-burbs like Naperville (pop. 142K) and Aurora (pop. 197K) are so overflowing with the grandchildren of baby boomers that town managers can hardly build new high schools fast enough to meet the demand.  These binary fissions can be painful (St. Charles, for example, would have likely added to its stockpile of State Meet hardware on both the girls’ and boys’ side had it not been divided into two schools), but these are temporary setbacks in the inexorable march toward bigger and faster swim programs.  The new schools typically come with competition-grade pools and pre-existing USS clubs to feed them.  The team champion in 2008, Neuqua Valley, was in its tenth year of existence.

Other factors are more subtle.  The Chicago Area’s emphasis on high school swimming contravenes the longstanding national focus on YMCA and club competition.  Many who live outside the Great Lakes, Texas and California may have read this far still asking who could possibly care about high school swimming. One answer is Chicagoans, and the reason may be tied to whether and where pools get built.[5]  In 1912, New Trier became one of the first high schools in the United States to build an indoor swimming pool.  Chicago schools in both the Public League and Catholic League followed suit and featured strong swimming traditions in the pre-WWII years.  Evanston raised a veritable swimming cathedral with wrap-around seating and an auxiliary pool that could be used for warming down.  Oak Park-River Forest built two hand-tiled competition pools adorned with statuary.  The standard was set.

For a number of reasons, this was less true Downstate, which largely continued to follow the national model of YMCA and club-based swimming and swimming pools.  We see the legacy of these decisions decades later:  while it is rare for an elite Chicago Area swimmer to skip the high school season, there are typically a few outstanding Downstate swimmers each year who opt out.  Occasionally, Downstate underclassmen will make big splashes at the State Meet in one year, but decline to return the next.  Due to the close proximity of the Chicago Area schools to one another, many teams sustain fierce, longstanding rivalries with multiple adversaries that help keep kids interested.  Such rivalries exist among some Peoria, Champaign and Springfield schools, to be sure, but they are fewer and farther between.

A related factor – as ever – is money.  The health of local youth swimming programs strongly correlates to the wealth of the surrounding areas, and the disparities in Illinois are stark.  Suburban Lake and DuPage counties, which house most of the top USS and high school teams in Illinois, are also the two wealthiest Illinois counties by per capita income (the next wealthiest county lags Lake and DuPage by nearly 20% on this measure).[6]  Not surprisingly, the bottom 92 counties on this list are – you guessed it – Downstate.

Since 1947, when Chicago’s venerable Lane Tech ended its historic run of 9 state championships in 10 years, the only team champions that have not come from big public schools in relatively wealthy suburbs were Matt Grevers’s 2003 team from Lake Forest High School (a mid-size public school in a seriously wealthy suburb) and two suburban private schools (Marmion Academy (2000) and Fenwick (1990, 1991 and 1992)).  New Trier had a budget in 2012 of over $95 million, $87 million of which was derived from local property taxes.  The average salary for New Trier teachers stands at $107,493, compared to $66,614 for the state as a whole.

It is extremely difficult to assemble a critical mass of top swimming talent on a single high school team at a single point in time;  just ask the folks at Fremd, a school that finally corralled its only team championships in 1994 and 1995 after knocking on the door for years, or Evanston, a school that waited 41 seasons in between titles.  But this kind of lightning is much more likely to strike at big, well-funded schools.  Competitive swimming’s patrician roots and requirements yield inequality at every turn, making it increasingly unlikely that a Downstate team will ever break through.  Or will it?

The 2013-14 Season and the U-High, Normal Pioneers

One great thing about swimmers at this age is their ability to surprise and astound.  Nearly every Illinois State Meet has dark horse finalists, relays that exceed wildest expectations, events that are markedly faster or slower than previous years and swimmers who are cruelly eliminated from top 6 or top 12 despite swimming very well.  Teams and swimmers must survive the Sectional Meet, which is their only chance to qualify for State and is awkwardly placed six days before the State Preliminaries.  Illinois coaches are faced with the acute challenge of getting high school swimmers under exacting cuts (examples: 1:38.27 for the 200 Medley Relay, 4:47.32 for the 500 Free) while trying to facilitate peak performances the following weekend.  Coaches frequently face excruciating lineup decisions, including whether to pull a swimmer from an individual event in favor of a third relay or whether a swimmer can handle swimming the 200 Free directly after the 200 Medley Relay or swimming the 500 Free and 200 Free Relay in rapid succession (when the meet is held at New Trier, there isn’t even a warm-down pool).  Such decisions can easily disaggregate the trophy contenders from the also-rans.  For these and other reasons, predicting the outcome of the Illinois State Meet four months in advance is a fool’s errand.  But this is the internet – the world’s sanctuary for fools’ errands – so here goes……

The foundation for any sound prediction in the Illinois State Meet is last year’s results.  They won’t tell you anything about swimmers who made significant strides over the summer, good swimmers who just missed the state cuts or didn’t quite make last year’s Sectional line-up, or any high-impact freshmen.  They will tell you, however, which teams appear to have an appreciable core of swimmers with State Meet experience and point-scoring bona fides.

Leading this group is Libertyville, coached by ASCA Hall of Famer and former Iowa State and Northwestern coach Bob Groseth.  After coaching the Wildcats to a fourth-place finish in his first year at the helm, Groseth returns with six swimmers who competed in last year’s State Meet, four of whom qualified in individual events.  Libertyville’s returning stars amassed 44 individual points and 34 relay points a year ago, led by Matt Harrington, who was third in the 100 Fly (49.07) and fifth in the 50 Free (21.05 Finals, 20.95 Prelims), and Alex Snarski, who was second in the 100 Back (49.98 Finals, 49.70 Prelims) and sixth in the 100 Fly (50.21 Finals, 49.57 Prelims).  Libertyville returns its entire fifth place 200 Medley Relay (1:34.71 Finals, 1:33.94 Prelims) and seventh place 400 Freestyle Relay (3:07.87) and could run away with the meet if swimmers like Pat King, Atticus Rush and Justin Fu drop significant time.  If you assume (inaccurately, of course) that each member of any relay contributes exactly 25% to that relay’s success, New Trier (54 effective points returning) and University High, Normal (52 effective points returning) trail Libertyville by a fairly wide margin.  Hinsdale Central returns the next-highest number of points at 34.5.  Clearly, Libertyville begins the campaign in excellent position.

If Vegas took an interest in the Illinois State Meet, New Trier would be given shorter odds than its three returning State Meet swimmers might suggest – and for good reason.  After a nearly 40-year championship drought, the New Trier boys’ program returned with a vengeance in 2004, capturing 7 of the next 10 state championships, including the last three.  Mark Onstott, who has announced that this will be his last year leading the Trevians, has established a record of developing talent quickly to replace departed stars.  This year’s New Trier team will be anchored by Jae Park, who won the 200 IM (1:50.04) and 100 Breast (55.86) at last year’s State Meet to punctuate a breakout season.  Key freestyle responsibilities will fall to Murhpy McQuet, the Trevians’ only other returning individual qualifier in a swimming event (New Trier also returns a diver who finished 15^th).  McQuet swam a sub-47 100 Free at last year’s State Meet as a sophomore and has shown promise.  To make a serious run at its fourth consecutive championship, New Trier will need big seasons from McQuet, Conor Fotsch (the only returning member of the Trevians’ third-place 200 Free Relay) and a few other swimmers who would be competing in their first State Meet.  None of this is out of the question, and Onstott’s team may have extra incentive to dig deep for their coach in his final campaign.  You can’t replace a senior class led by the likes of Reed Malone and Jack Mangan, but anyone prematurely celebrating the demise of this dynasty may have some surprises in store.

Hinsdale Central returns only one individual point from last year’s State Meet (Brian Portland’s 12^th place finish in the 100 Fly (50.99 Finals, 50.32 Prelims), but the Red Devils have four other swimmers and one diver with State Meet experience.  Portland was joined by Brian Powell on Hinsdale Central’s winning 200 Free Relay last season (1:23.43 Finals, 1:23.02 Prelims) and Banistre Lienhart on the fourth-place 400 Free Relay (3:07.33 Finals, 3:07.16 Prelims).  Distance swimmer Adam Pircon and backstroker Craig Smith qualified in individual events as a sophomore and freshman, respectively, and will be looking to score individual points this season.  Hinsdale Central has never returned to its utter dominance of the 1960s and 70s, when it won 12 consecutive championships, or even its perennial contender status of the 1980s and 90s, when it won three consecutive team titles followed a few years later by three consecutive second-place finishes.  The Red Devils, however, have made a habit of punching above their apparent weight with gigantic season-end time drops leading to high team finishes.  Under coach Corky King, Hinsdale Central put together a string of third-place finishes in the early ‘00s, followed by a fourth-place finish in 2012 and a second-place finish a year ago.  One thing is certain:  when the bell rings, the Red Devils will answer.

A number of teams that bring less obvious firepower into the season will likely round into formidable shape by the end.  Fenwick (27 effective points returning) and Glenbrook South (22 effective points returning) each has five swimmers and one diver with State Meet experience.  Metea Valley (22.5 effective points returning), Waubonsie Valley (22.5 effective points returning), Marmion (22 effective points returning) and Peoria Notre Dame (17 effective points returning) each has three swimmers with State Meet experience.  It is nearly impossible for a team to finish in the top three at this meet without a blue-chip star, and each of these teams has at least one swimmer who seems capable of assuming that role.  Notably, Glenbrook South’s Jon Salomon and Metea Valley’s Matt Salerno both had excellent summers.  Salomon was third in the 200 IM (1:50.95) and ninth in the 100 Breast (58.09) last year, while Salerno placed sixth in both of those events (1:53.42 200 IM (1:52.07 Prelims), 56.80 100 Breast (56.16 Prelims)).  Peoria Notre Dame’s Jared Schimmelpfenning swam a 4:32.73 in Prelims and placed sixth in the finals of the 500 Free, an event in which every other championship finalist has graduated.  In addition to Schimmelpfenning, Peoria Notre Dame returns three-fourths of a strong 200 Medley Relay (1:35.88).

Which brings us back to the Downstate team of the moment, University High, Normal.  Fifth a year ago, U-High Normal returns four swimmers with State Meet experience, accounting for 52 of the Pioneers’ points at last year’s State Meet.  U-High is led by Adam Drury, who last year placed fifth in the 200 Free (1:39.64)  and eighth in the 100 Free (46.27 Finals, 46.00 Prelims), and Jake Miller, who struggled with illness at last year’s State Meet and was forced to scratch the 500 Free.  Miller has lifetime bests of 1:51.28 in the 200 IM, 4:34.45 in the 500 Free, and 21.54/46.54 in the freestyle sprints.  Joining them is Steven Fishman, who swam a 1:54.47 in last year’s preliminaries of the 200 IM en route to a 12^th place finish and has been under 52 seconds in the 100 Back.  U-High returns its entire 200 Free Relay, which swam 1:24.80 and finished fourth a year ago, and its entire 400 Free Relay, which swam 3:08.70 and finished eighth.  Both relays got heroic legs from the ailing Miller and will be looking to realize their full potential at this year’s State Meet.  For U-High, the key to those relays and perhaps its season may be the progress of a few emerging swimmers, led by John Remmes.

If U-High Normal does pull off the epic upset and take down Libertyville, New Trier and the other Chicago Area teams, it will be remarkable for more reasons than the mere geography and size.  Team champions at the Illinois State Meet typically come from programs that have a long history of producing individual event and relay champions and perennially placing among the top ten teams.  U-High has never won a relay and boasts only two individual swimming event champions in its history – Ryan Ruddy (200 IM, 1995) and Kyle Jackson (500 Free, 2000).  The Pioneers have failed to score a single point in eight of the last 14 State Meets, and have just barely registered on the team tables in other years, finishing 26^th in 2009 and 1999, 34^th in 1998, and 40^th in 2003 and 1997.  Under coach Michelle Meyer, however, U-High has begun to join the ranks of the elite, finishing seventh in 2010, third in 2011, eighth in 2012 and fifth a year ago.  And, of course, neither the timing system nor the swimmers themselves will care about the history of this great swim meet once the National Anthem is played in Evanston on February 28.  The 2014 team from University High, Normal will have every reason to ask, “Why not us?  Why not now?”.

IHSA BOYS’ SWIMMING

PRE-SEASON RANKINGS, 2013-14

1.         Libertyville

2.         Normal (University)

3.         Winnetka (New Trier)

4.         Hinsdale (Central)

5.         Glenview (Glenbrook South)

6.         Aurora (Metea Valley)

7.         Oak Park (Fenwick)

8.         Aurora (Marmion Academy)

9.         Peoria (Notre Dame)

10.       Aurora (Waubonsie Valley)

— The author, Kyle R. Ahlgren, is a lawyer who lives and works in Washington, D.C.  He swam at Oak Park-River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois (’93) and the College of William & Mary in Virginia (’97).  He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].