Over the last five years, The Bahamas is fast becoming known as the ideal place for university and college swim teams to train during the brutal winter months in the United States. This has been the trend for the past years.
The latest school invited to The Bahamas to soak up some of the preferred environment is the 28-member Ladies Team from the University Of Nevada At Reno.
Coach Mike Shreader heads the team on its first trip to The Bahamas. He was invited to The Bahamas by former swim standout Andy Knowles, who is also the father of the country’s premier swimmer Jeremy Knowles.
After nine days of hard work at the Betty Kelly Kenning National Aquatic Centre 50-metres pool and the 25-metres facility at St. Andrews School, the team will leave for Nevada on Sunday.
It hasn’t all been just hard work. The team has also been able to do some sightseeing, and get a little rest and study time while in New Providence.
Shreader has high praise for The Bahamas because the “high level of service and the generally friendly attitude of the people.”
He said one of the advantages of bringing the team to The Bahamas to train is the fact that there are no distractions.
“With the beautiful facilities you have here we are doing a great job accomplishing all of our goals.
“It’s such a beautiful place, and while we are here the girls are so relaxed, they don’t have any school worries, they don’ t have any conflicts, everybody is really in to it and the team is really bonding well. This is the number one thing besides the training and I think it will carry us all the way through to the championship,” said Shreader.
Three seniors including Maren Gunsalus (distance freestyle), Aaron Holland (distance freestyle) and Chen Shi (breast stroke) will try to lead the Wolf Pack to a title this year.
Last year they finished third in the conference. This year, the Wolf Pack along with the University of Hawaii, are favored to dominate.
As has been the case in basketball, track and field and now soccer in The Bahamas, Shreader says his school recruits from all over the world and that this country is a definite recruiting ground.
According to Shreader the Wolf Pack has three girls on the team from China, one from Australia, and there are swimmers from Canada. He said they are looking for talented female swimmers “all over the world.”
Junior female standouts like Arianna Vanderpool -Wallace, and sisters Alicia and Teaisha Lightbourne who have been among the fastest in their events in the Caribbean, would no doubt be a great addition to any college or university team.
About returning Shreader said, “We would love to come back every single year.”
He said if there was an early season tournament hosted by The Bahamas Swim Federation for college and university teams that count towards their conference standings the University of Nevada At Reno would be “the first team to sign up.”
Taking a break from their workout 20-year old sophomore Noni Wainwright and 18-year old freshman Jaydee Huppert both said they were enjoying the break from the frosty weather in the U.S.
A Journalism Major, Wainwright said she wants to finish in the top eight in her specialties the 50-free, and 100-free in the WAC Conference. She was thrilled to be in The Bahamas.
“When we first heard that we were going to be coming to The Bahamas we were really excited. We knew the work was going to be hard but we are all here together its fun and hard at the same time.
“I think if we had stayed in Reno we would have had a really hard time with it, but it’s good to get out of the country and come to someplace like this to get our training in, she said.”
Out of Billingsworth High School in Montana, Huppert, a nursing major, swims the 50, 100 and 200 freestyle. She said her goals this year are to help complete a strong freshman core that will take the team to a title championship.
During her last two years in high school, Huppert helped her team win the State Championship and she repeated as State Champion in the 50 metres and 100 metres freestyle.
She said, “We have a great batch of freshman swimmers so the future for our programme looks good.”
The next big conference meet for the Wolf pack will be in February in San Antonio, Texas against teams like the University of Idaho, New Mexico State University, San Diego State University and Northern Arizona State University.
By: Gerrino Saunders, The Bahama Journal
