By Eric Brod
Senior Writer
When Spencer Whalen ’13 came to campus last fall, he knew he wanted to continue with the sport he grew up with: swimming. After competing on his high school, club and summer teams throughout his youth, Whalen knew it would be hard to adjust to life without a swim team.
When he found out there was no club swim team at the University, Whalen became determined to set up some type of club.
“I ended up going to the pool and doing workouts on my own for the first couple months of the school year,” he said. “I found it difficult to get myself to go to the pool by myself, so after a while I got my roommate from last year [Matt Szymanski ’13] to join me for some light workouts. Then I came up with the idea of making my own attempt at a club swim team.”
This summer, Whalen decided shared his idea of starting an on-campus swim club with Recreational Services, but then decided to take matters into his own hands, first sending out a message through the Message Center and then creating a Facebook group titled “Bucknell Swimming Enthusiasts.” Within a few hours, the group had 20 students in it. The group is now up to 40 people, and more have expressed interest.
This year, Whalen’s main goal is to make some noise and hopefully get the University to recognize them as a team. Currently, they offer practice twice a week. Whalen keeps attendance in a notebook.
“I am responsible for organizing everything at the moment, workouts attendance, etc., and it would be a lot easier if we could get a paid coach on board to get our team headed in the right direction,” Whalen said.
Although Whalen feels the Enthusiasts are a long way from competition, his main focus is on getting recognized as an official club.
“I am hoping that our goal of being recognized as a club team comes to fruition soon because it is something that we all hold as a true passion of ours—it is also something a school like Bucknell needs, too,” he said.