Amidst the sounds of splashing water and chatter, a group of voices cut through and drown out the noise. Senior captains Kendall Pinkerton, Gio Linscheer and Megan Lam shout out the first cheers of pride for their school name as the rest of the swim team members echo back the refrains with similar passion. 

The series of chants kickstart the meet, but the praises of support for each member of the team don’t stop there. Pinkerton explains that the positivity exchanged between members is something that she loves about the team.

“With the high school team we have special cheers [and] inside jokes,” Pinkerton said. “At any competition we go to everybody is always cheering. There are so many people at the end of the lane cheering for you no matter how well you do [and] someone is always there to give you a high five.”

During the pandemic, it was difficult for the team to fully unite as one group especially with the absence of some members. The transition back to school also feigned an obstacle for the entire team to connect as new members began to replace ones that left. To increase community with each other, the team began the new year with a meet called Black and Gold for the team to get together, but the success of this gathering was all dependent on the coordination of the captains. Although head coach Adam Bull notes that he has the time to plan for fun events like these, he explains that there’s a sense of importance in having captains on the team make these decisions, especially in their ability to understand their own peers.

“I think it’s good that captains can have their own responsibilities that they lead, especially when it comes to fun stuff,” Bull said. “They’re actually in high school going through the same thing as everyone else, so they’ll have a much better idea of what everyone else will enjoy more than I would.”

In addition to planning events, other responsibilities of captains include serving as an overall good role model, communicating general opinions from the team to the coach, and organizing social media platforms for booster clubs. However, Linscheer shares similar sentiments about how captains truly impact the team.

“I think that it’s really important that we have captains because it gives new swimmers on the team people that they can feel comfortable reaching out to,” Linscheer said. “At the beginning of the season, there were kids that didn’t know anyone on the team and they had questions and having captains makes it easier to reach out to someone. It’s important to have both adult and student leaders to have someone they can relate to.”

Sharing similar sentiments, Bull explains that in the future, he aims to define the role of captains more in his hopes to allow members the chance to manage some responsibility. 

“Leadership is important and if you never have the opportunity of a [leadership role], you’ll never be able to find it [again],” Bull said. “Although sometimes there are limitations, [leadership] is something you should always keep working on.”