Stillwater Area High School swimmer Matt Payne stays behind after school each day to give teammate Alec Olson a ride to practice. Alec is legally blind.
“Matt waits for Alec, and then he helps him in the door to make sure that he gets inside and everything,” said senior swimmer John Stack. “We all kind of look out for him in that way.”
It’s been a season of looking out for one another on the Ponies’ boys swim and dive team.
At meets, team members carry Thomas Watry’s crutches to him during sprint warm-ups. Thomas, a freshman, was born with multiple defects on his right leg.
“It’s really slippery when it’s wet and stuff,” Matt said, “so when he finishes, there’s always another teammate who walks down to the other end of the pool and hands him his crutches.”
When seventh-grader Thomas Putnam, who has a rare genetic disorder that causes seizures and developmental delays, cut seven seconds off his personal-best 100-yard backstroke at a recent meet, the Ponies went wild.
“Everybody was high-fiving him. They were all so excited for him,” said his mother, Rachelle Putnam of Stillwater.
“It was just really, really sweet, because you don’t know how high school boys are going to be, especially with a kid who’s a little bit different.”
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE TEAM
“It’s a great group of boys,” coach Brian Luke said. “They are really top-shelf. We always try to stress the team, but lately I’ve been a little more cognizant of that.”
Senior Jon Busse, 18, won the state title in the 100-yard backstroke when he was a freshman and took third last year. He will swim at Northern Michigan University in Marquette next year.
Jon said the swimmers encourage one another in — and out of — the pool.
“A lot of that is from the character-building that Mr. Luke talks to us about,” Jon said. “You’re not better than anybody next to you. It’s a team, and it’s all about teamwork.”
“I like the brotherhood of it,” said 15-year-old Thomas Watry of Oak Park Heights. “Not one guy can do it. Another team may get a guy in first, but if you can get all the rest of the spots, that’s a lot better than just having that one guy in first. It’s working together.”
Swimmers are expected to be at every practice, and no swimmer gets special treatment.
EVERYONE GETS AN EQUAL SHOT
“We try to remain fair, no matter who you are,” coach Luke said. “You can be the best swimmer or the weakest swimmer: everything pertains equally to you, exactly the same.”
Matt said coach Luke followed through with that during the first relay Alec swam this season. Alec, an 18-year-old senior, transferred to Stillwater this year from the Minnesota Online High School. Previously, he had attended Minnesota State Academy for the Blind in Faribault.
Alec was born with cystic fibrosis, but it was not detected until he was 10 months old. By then, the disease had affected his vision, said his mother, Jill Olson. “His organs shut down, and he ended up getting hydrocephalus, which put pressure on his optic nerves.”
Alec can see shadows and movements, but reads using Braille and uses a cane for walking in public.
“I think other coaches might be cautious with Alec, but he treats him just the same,” Matt said. “You’d think you would put him at the front of the relay, but he went third. Mr. Luke just told the first person who swam to tell him when it was his time to go. He gives everyone a fair shot.”
Coach Luke says his coaching philosophy is simple: Never lower your expectations.
“If you say, ‘Here’s the level of expectation,’ I’ve found every one of them will try to elevate to that,” said Luke, who taught freshman science at Oak-Land Junior High in Lake Elmo for 35 years before retiring in 2010. “In my teaching, I did the same thing. You have to take into account certain things, but everyone is expected to go out there and try. Then, they become more successful in everything.”
‘THEY JUST DO IT’
Luke, 64, has been coaching varsity boys and girls swimming at Stillwater since he graduated from Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall in 1975. He was 22 years old then.
It took 16 years for the boys swim team to win their first section title after he took over. Since then, the Ponies have been a swimming powerhouse and have won 14 Minnesota State High School League section championships and 20 conference championships.
But Luke won’t take credit for the Ponies’ success.
“I don’t have a corner on this stuff,” he said. “We just happen to have good athletes.”
Luke writes out the practice schedule — almost 8,000 yards during a recent “Hammer Day” at a midweek practice — and 50 boys jump into the pool and take off.
“You don’t have to be jumping on them,” Luke said. “They just do it.”
KOOL 108, Luke’s favorite radio station, blares in the background as the boys take turns taking off through the choppy water, watching the clock for the right interval. There are no lane dividers. “I’m old-fashioned,” Luke said.
Luke trains all of his swimmers to compete in the individual medley, which covers the four swimming styles: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. The process creates the best-conditioned swimmers, he said.
“It teaches them to swim everything, it uses all their muscles,” Luke said.
Discipline is the key to the team’s success, according to Matt Payne, one of four team captains. The others are Jon Busse, John Stack and Robert Niemann, an 18-year-old senior who will swim at the University of Wisconsin-Madison next year.
“Everyone is expected to be here on time every day and to work their hardest every day,” Matt said. “One thing Mr. Luke told us in the beginning of the year: ‘There’s only one person in this world who cares about how tired you are, and that is your mother.’ He said, ‘No one else could care if you’re on the last leg of your race, and you want to breathe when you shouldn’t.’ He said, ‘No, you just finish it. If we have to drag you out of the pool, then so be it.’
“That’s what people take farther into life — because when you’re going for a career and stuff, people aren’t just going to be giving you pity and stuff. You have to fight for it.”
‘LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE’
Thomas Watry was born with a partial right foot and knee, a short femur and tibia, and no fibula. When he was 9 months old, surgeons amputated his foot “so that he could proceed with learning to walk with a prosthetic leg,” said his mother, Gina Watry.
Three years later, his knee was fused to his femur and tibia so his leg would have the strength and ability of one bone. “He looks like an above-knee amputee, but all he ever actually lost was his foot,” Gina Watry said.
Thomas, who specializes in freestyle and butterfly, hopes to compete in the Paralympics in Tokyo in 2020. He is competing in April in Indianapolis in the World Para Swimming World Series and hopes to qualify for Emerging Team USA.
When he is not swimming for Stillwater, he swims for the St. Croix Swim Club.
“I don’t tend to pity myself, and I don’t think coach Luke pities me, and none of my teammates do,” Thomas said. “I get in, and I want to be like everybody else, and I do that. I hold myself to the same standard as everybody else. There’s no difference.”
Alec said the other boys on the team are always willing to help him out.
“I sometimes need to be pointed in the right direction,” Alec said. “I can see the lines on the bottom of the pool, and I can do flip turns by myself. The only thing I can’t do … is backstroke because it’s really hard for me to see the sprinkler heads on the ceiling to line up.”
Thomas Putnam, 13, of Stillwater said all of the boys on the team have been nice to him, “especially Aidan (Fuerst), Wyatt (Franklin) and Mason (Fonseca).”
In 2014, when he was 9 years old, Thomas was diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Sodium Channel Neuropathy 8A (SCN8A), which is believed to exist in only about 200 children worldwide. His younger sister, Anna, 10, has the same disorder; they are the only non-twin siblings in the world who have it, Rachelle Putnam said.
“He’s super-determined,” she said. “Even though it’s not as easy for him as it is for other kids, he works super-hard. I think there’s a lesson to be learned in that.”
Being on the swim team this winter has been an “awesome” experience for Thomas, she said.
“They’ve been incredible,” she said. “He wasn’t sure he wanted to do swim team this year, but he’s all about it now. It’s so good for him to get to know some of the older kids, the upperclassmen. He feels a little more comfortable as he goes up the grades because he sees a familiar face. He never forgets a face. He never forgets a name. He’ll remember all that stuff — and knowing that there are people looking out for him makes me feel a little bit better.”
Coach Luke said he hopes lessons learned at the pool will stick with his swimmers for the rest of their lives.
“Being fast at swimming means one thing and one thing only: you’re fast at swimming,” Luke said. “It has no relevancy for the rest of your life. They don’t ask you at a job interview: ‘What was your fastest 100-free time?’ They don’t care. They want to know your character. They want to know your ability. They want to know your motivation. That’s what we try to develop here. Because that is, ultimately, what is going to carry them for the rest of their lives.”