Published: February 2, 2009ST. CHARLES – While some were spending their Sunday morning preparing for the Super Bowl, others were in the Norris Recreation Center swimming pool, competing in a Super Bowl all their own.
The 12th annual St. Charles Masters Super Bowl Swim Meet featured over 200 swimmers from as close as St. Charles to as far as northwest Indiana and North Carolina, including 27-year-old Charlotte native Chip Jetton.
“His girlfriend lives here in town,” meet organizer Paul Olney said, “and he read about [the meet] online and just wanted to come and experience it. I just talked to him. He can’t believe the size of this thing.”
With the spectator seats almost filled with swimmers and their families, the meet almost felt like the IHSA state meet – except that participants ranged from ages 22 to 76.
The high school team that calls the pool home was not left out.
The Super Bowl meet is the largest fundraiser of the year for the St. Charles East girls team, so every swimmer – and many of their parents – lends a hand with setting up, taking down and assisting during the meet.
East senior Laura Marks sat at a table with junior Madison Abu-Gheida, signing up teams for the relay races.
When asked what it was like to be behind the scenes of a meet instead of competing in one, Marks said, “It’s refreshing, but you kind of miss [competing] when you see people in the water.”
Sometimes, Marks says, she even gets a little competitive when watching swimmers in her event.
“When I’m timing,” she said, “I look up and when a heat goes slower, I think, ‘Ah! I could’ve won that.’”
Despite it being a fundraiser, the meet was not to be mistaken for a fun and casual dip in the pool.
“Swim meets are never casual,” Marks said, “because a lot of people put a lot of time into it. People have been anticipating this meet for a long time and practicing for it.”
Olney says that the practice shows. While watching the 500-yard freestyle race, he pointed out that some of the participants could give the East team a run for its money.
“They swim times that would be competitive in high school. Others just come out for the exercise, so it’s definitely not as high-pressure as a high school event,” he said. “We’re a little more subdued at our age.”
One of those swimmers was Max Zollner, 70, of Joliet. He’s been swimming with the Naperville Waves for 30 years and competing in the St. Charles meet for five.
Zollner finished his 400-yard individual medley in over eight minutes. Not exactly competitive speed, but for an event Olney calls one of the hardest for any swimmer that featured just six particiapants, Zollner was satisfied with his time.
“I finished it 10 seconds faster than at the meet last year,” he said, “so when you’re a year older, that’s pretty good.”
Like most of the competitors, Zollner swims for both fitness and for the fun of being on a team and competing. “It is tiring,” he said, “but there’s also a lot of adrenaline.”
But while Zollner was coping with the pressure of swimming the butterfly, Olney was coping with the pressure of organizing and running the meet for the first time. This is his first year as the head organizer after Doug Long, a colleague and the original mastermind of the meet, retired.
Using the internet and the Illinois State Masters organization, Long built a reputation for the event, making it a one of the largest in the state. The meet raises over a third of the team’s budget every year, paying for things like lane-lines and uniforms.
“[There’s] more pressure before the meet because I have to take entries from over 200 swimmers,” Olney said. “There’s a lot of work and coordination that goes into it. But it’s a great event.”
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