A Swim Coach’s Review of “Swimfan”

By: Tyler Montgomery

Read Tyler’s review of “The Thirteenth Year” here.

Swimfan is a teen-drama thriller released in 2002 and judging by the soundtrack was never intended to be viewed again after 2002. The movie is about a star high school swimmer named Ben Cronin who has his life turned upside down after cheating on his girlfriend with a new student at their school. You may have read one of the (mostly bad) reviews of this movie before, but I would like to offer a review from the perspective of a high school swim coach.

Early in the movie Ben’s coach, who appears to be the first ever high school swim coach who is also in the mafia, tells Ben that scouts from Stanford will be present at their meet the following week to watch Ben swim. Ben says he thinks he can get his 100 free time down under 45 seconds. That would make Ben an All-American by 2020 standards, so it’s no surprise he was on Stanford’s radar in 2002.

Before I go any further, there are a few things I couldn’t help but notice about the pool at Sadie Woods High School, home of the Stingrays. The first is how easy it is for swimmers, or anyone else for that matter, to get into the pool. Swimmers regularly swim laps before school with no lifeguard present and use the pool at night for other nefarious activities. So either every swimmer has a key to the pool, which seems unlikely, or their mafia don/coach is leaving the doors wide open.

The other thing that stood out to me is the lane lines. Half the time the lane lines are in, half the time they are out. Anyone who has changed lane lines in or out of a pool knows this is not a quick and easy task. Somehow Coach Simkins finds the time to move the lane lines in and out of the pool on a daily basis, but he can’t take a few seconds to lock the doors to the pool after practice? If he only knew what has and will take place when he’s not there he would have a very different attitude about how accessible his pool is.

After Ben tries to distance himself from Madison Bell, the new student at his school that he had a one-time romantic encounter with, everything in his life starts to go horribly wrong. Among the things that go wrong for Ben is that he tests positive for steroids and is dismissed from the swim team, because you remember how it was back in high school when you had to be tested for steroids after geometry class, right?

At the big meet with the Stanford scouts present Ben’s mob boss/coach informs him that he has tested positive for steroids and is off the team. In doing so Coach Simkins delivers my favorite line of the movie: “Steroids are banned at this school, Ben.” There were many things I wasn’t allowed to do at my high school, but I was never explicitly told, “No juicing allowed”. Why so uptight, Sadie Woods High? Anyways, the Stingrays follow the standard protocol for high school dual meets that we are all familiar with:

1. Announce all swimmers in the next event
2. Eject anyone who has tested positive for steroids that week
3. Proceed with the event

The scouts make their way out after Ben is ejected and as he is sulking in the locker room the announcement can be heard that the winner is Ben’s teammate Josh Ferguson with a time of 1:33.6. A 1:33.6? In what? We can see that it was a freestyle event and we can logically throw out the 50 and the 500 free based on that time. If it was the 100 free that means had Ben swam he would have finished roughly 48 seconds ahead of the second place finisher. From what we see of the event all of the swimmers appeared to be at least above average, so we can throw out the 100 free as well. That only leaves the 200 free. That means the scouts that flew all the way across the country to see Ben walked out seconds before Josh set what would have been a national record at the time this movie was released. This seems worthy of more attention in the plot than it received and perhaps Stanford should rethink who they send on these recruiting trips.

A few days later Ben decides to go for his first swim since being dismissed from the team. As he’s swimming through the lane line-less water he collides with the lifeless body of his teammate (and current 200 freestyle national record holder?), Josh. Somehow Ben walked from the locker room to the side of the pool, dove in, and swam almost the entire length of the pool before noticing his teammate and friend’s dead body in the water. Great athletes have the ability to focus on the task at hand and block out all other distractions, but to not even notice your friend’s dead body floating face down in the pool you are about to dive into is elite-level focus that cannot be taught. I, on the other hand, have a ritual of looking for anything unusual or out of place before I jump into a pool. I’m primarily looking to make sure a shark or alligator hasn’t somehow gotten into the pool, but I’d like to think I would notice a corpse floating in the water as well. Perhaps this is why I wasn’t scouted by Stanford, or any other D1 school for that matter.

In one of the final scenes of the movie Madison has Ben’s girlfriend, Amy, handcuffed to a chair and eventually pushes her into the deep end of the pool. Because safety is a high priority at my practices, I am lifeguard certified by the American Red Cross. In lifeguard training there are a few different categories of drowning victims: active victim in deep water, passive victim in shallow water, and so on. After watching this film I recommend the American Red Cross add the category of “passive victim handcuffed to heavy chair at bottom of pool” just to make sure all scenarios are covered.

Underwater lock picking is not (currently) taught in lifeguard training, but fortunately Ben possesses this skill and is able to bring Amy to the surface despite Madison attacking him with some kind of elongated pool tool. Ben then uses the tool to pull Madison into the deep end of the pool. Madison cannot swim and thanks to Coach Simkins’ routine of removing the lane lines on a daily basis, has nothing to grab onto. Ben does a good job of extricating Amy from the pool without the assistance of a backboard and after a few rescue breaths Amy appears to be okay. In the meantime Madison has gone from an active drowning victim to a passive victim submerged in deep water, but Ben does not attempt to rescue her.

At this point in the movie you may think that Ben is justified in letting Madison perish after all that she has put him through, but as a certified lifeguard I must disagree. My lifeguard certification instructor made it clear to me that it doesn’t matter if the drowning victim in front of you is a complete stranger or someone who has gotten you fired from your job, ended your swimming career, murdered your friend and framed you for it, attempted to murder your girlfriend and frame you for that, murdered two police officers, assaulted your mother, and just attempted to murder your girlfriend a second time. I personally thought that was an oddly specific example, but his point was that a drowning victim is a drowning victim and it is your responsibility to take action.

At the very end of the movie Ben pops into the pool to catch the Stingrays in action at another meet, but I can’t look past the fact that they’ve pulled two dead bodies out of this pool in the past week. It’s more of a crime scene than a pool at this point. Trust me, I know how difficult it is to schedule a dual meet and the last thing you want to do is cancel one at the last minute. However, under these circumstances I think maybe it’s best for everyone associated with this team to take a few days off from swimming and finally lock the door to the pool. Otherwise they could be looking at a double-digit body count by the time the state meet rolls around.

Swimfan is hands down the best high school swimming movie released in September of 2002. It was given a PG-13 rating for mature themes and language, but what viewers should be even more cognizant of is it’s disturbing depictions of questionable aquatic facility management and irresponsible safety protocol. It’s a fairly entertaining movie, but you have been warned. Enjoy at your own risk.

ABOUT TYLER MONTGOMERY

Tyler Montgomery had a four-year swimming career, all with the Water Warriors of Riverdale High School in Murfreesboro, TN.  He didn’t think about swimming for the next ten years until he was asked to coach the Rockvale Middle School swim team in Rockvale, TN, which he has coached since 2017.  He was also named the first-ever swim coach at Rockvale High School, which opened in the fall of 2019.  Being a middle and high school swim coach is not nearly as lucrative as it sounds, so Tyler also works in the publishing industry and has a degree in Electronic Media Management from Middle Tennessee State University.