In the SwimSwam Podcast dive deeper into the sport you love with insider conversations about swimming. Hosted by Coleman Hodges, Garrett McCaffrey, and Gold Medal Mel Stewart, SwimSwam welcomes both the biggest names in swimming that you already know, and rising stars that you need to get to know, as we break down the past, present, and future of aquatic sports.
We sat down with Zoe Bartel, the NCAA champion from Stanford who recently announced a mid-season retirement in what was her senior season on the team. Bartel goes into detail about her relationship with swimming, starting when she was young and actually tried to quit swimming when she was 16. She reveals that skiing was always her true love, but she did eventually come to love aspects of swimming, like the hard work that came with training and her teammates. Bartel explains why this was finally the right time for her to step away from the pool completely and what her future looks like moving forward.
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Music: Otis McDonald
www.otismacmusic.com
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Opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the interviewed guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the hosts, SwimSwam Partners, LLC and/or SwimSwam advertising partners.
Really nice interview and opportunity for swim fans to hear directly from her about this big decision. Wishing her all the best as she moves on to other exciting moments in her life.
And, as an aside, Coleman, you look great! Beard lookin’ fine!
Coleman said it all with his question about “Why did you Quit Mid-Season of your Senior year? She couldn’t wait four months to pursue her other interests?
Zoe has a photography talent, great composition. I have always enjoyed her photos of Colorado on Instagram.
I wish she could have waited four months…
I get that sentiment. But as someone who spent four years in a D1 spring sport, I also get wanting to experience college as a non-athlete. At a place like Stanford (and really probably most universities), there are endless opportunities, and you can’t take advantage of many of the them if you’re in practice or class or lab every waking moment. And that’s hard even if you do love the sport.
Apart from that, after years of grinding (whether it’s staring at the black line or running countless miles or pulling an oar through the water over and over or whatever), sometimes you’re just done. As a college student, I probably would’ve idealized sticking it out “for the team”… Read more »
Wait till you get a job with only two weeks a year to really do what you want. “There are endless opportunities, and you can’t take advantage of many of the them, if you’re at your Job”, but that’s how you pay the bills.
Oh wait! If you are a D1 Athlete on Scholarship, isn’t that your Job? You participate in a sport and get most or all expenses paid by the University. Just like millions of people who have a Job, they do the best they can at their job, and try to balance their other interests with their need to pay the bills.
Well, as someone who’s 10 years into practice in a very high-hours career, that’s kind of why I feel like not wasting your college years on something you don’t like is so important.
That said, that’s is a fair point on scholarships. In my sport, most of us only got a little, so it wasn’t as big of a consideration for us as for as with full rides. So yeah, if not sticking it out for a few more months truly means hurting your team while continuing to take their resources, then maybe you should. But I do stand by my statement that having someone there who doesn’t want to be there probably isn’t the best thing for anyone.
It’d be nice if everyone wasn’t limited to only two weeks a year to do what they want. That sucks, a lot.
But I just wanna make sure – your take is if you’ve got the opportunity to do what you really want, you…shouldn’t? Because later on you wouldn’t also be able to do what you want?
Plus, the only reason Bartel got into Stanford was because of swimming.
You obviously are just guessing unless you were her admissions officer.
I swam D1 for four years and there was nothing more toxic than a senior who no longer wanted to be there. Kudos to Zoe for stepping away to preserve a positive team atmosphere.
Fair enough, though in hearing her talk I find it hard to believe that she would be a toxic presence on the team. As someone who quit swimming in college (though I did it much earlier than Zoe did, after my sophomore season) I am just concerned that years from now she might have a tinge of regret that she didn’t stick it out, especially since she was down to her final few months, and even more especially if Stanford wins another NCAA title.
Evidently,the mental health aspect overruled the swimming aspect,making her much happier in the end.
Years ago I swam for a D1 program at a school that is less competitive (athletically) than Stanford, but with similar academic demands. It’s just… really really hard. I have never met Zoe, but I definitely respect her decision.
During my sophomore year, I had a season-ending illness, and a host of mental health problems. I wound up staying at the campus health service for two weeks, postponing my fall semester exams, and barely making it back to campus at all during the spring semester. While this was happening (the coach knew about all of it), he was on the phone with my parents telling them that I had missed an unacceptable number of practices, and that this was the… Read more »
Coleman’s really corning the market on “breaststrokers who do not want to swim in college” as podcast guests.
Also, I had been waiting for the podcast feed to get ads for a while, and the ad I got for this ep was an ad for…podcast ads.