American Field Service, started in 1914 as a volunteer ambulance corps, has offered multinational student exchanges between countries since 1971. AFS has afforded Alice Ruiu an opportunity to leave her homeland of Italy and enroll at Brewer High School for a year as an exchange student.
“To have Alice join our swim program has been a wonderful addition,” Brewer coach Kathy Cahill said.
In Italy, Ruiu swims for a club team, training twice a day in a 50-meter pool. As Cahill explained, swimming in a 25-yard pool rather than a 50-meter pool places a greater emphasis on turns. There are no 50-meter pools in Maine.
“She’s a model example every day in training and in stroke technique,” Cahill added.
As Brewer approaches the halfway mark of the dual-meet season, Ruiu ranks among the fastest Class A swimmers. In the butterfly, she has recorded the fastest time and in the individual medley she has the third fastest performance. Cahill also pointed out Ruiu has split 55 seconds in the 400 free relay.
While Ruiu’s quality racing skills challenge those of the state’s elite racers, the Brewer boys, too, have racers with the speed to swim fast.
Freshman Josh Williams opened his high school racing career earlier this season with a sub-minute 100 backstroke, a personal record. Meanwhile, brother Brent Williams, a senior, is fast and exceptionally versatile, according to Cahill.
“Speed-wise we are competitive with every team in the Penobscot Valley Conference except Bangor. We do not have the speed depth Bangor has,” Cahill said.
However, with the development of junior swimmer Mitch Pottle along with the improvement of the inexperienced swimmers and the progress of divers Zach Callahan, Glory Watson and Martina Bosse, Cahill projects personal bests in the Penobscot Valley Conference and state championship meets.
“The desired goal is to have achieved our best times and career-best performances at the PVC and at the state meet,” Cahill said.
Cahill, who has foreign language teaching experience, has incorporated video analysis more extensively in workouts than in past years.
“So many of our students are visual learners today. Yet, as coaches we rely on auditory instruction in our coaching,” Cahill said. “We review with our athletes instructional stroke technique video and then video their strokes and review the video with them. We are doing video daily.
“The team is very close and unified. Our team emphasis is on technique and our swimmers and divers are highly motivated. They are all striving to do better than their previous best.”
U.S. swimmers to be inducted
Two Americans will be inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame at the May ceremony in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Swimmer Brooke Bennett and coach Murray Stephens, the founder and longtime coach of North Baltimore Aquatic Club, are among the Class of 2010 which also includes representatives from Germany, Austria, Russia, Hungary and Romania.
Induction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame generally is considered the highest honor in swimming.
Bennett won gold medals in the 800-meter freestyle at the 1996 and the 2000 Olympic Games while also winning a gold in the 400 free relay in the 2000 games. In 1996, Bennett’s first Olympic medal came in a race which was the final race of American legend Janet Evans.
Since 1968, Stephens’ North Baltimore Aquatic Club has produced at least one United States Olympic Trial swimmer in every U.S. trials. Mark Schubert, director of the U.S. swim team for the last Olympic Games, said in an article in the Baltimore Sun, “NBAC is the best swimming club program in America.”
Stephens coached Michael Phelps in high school swimming and NBAC is the training pool for Phelps. Two of Stephens’ swimmers at NBAC, Theresa Andrews (1984 Olympics) and Anita Nall (1992 Olympics), won gold medals at the Games.
Race dedicated to Averill
In a gesture testifying to the eternal spirit nurtured among swimmers, Heather Houston, swimming in the recent Bangor High School alumni meet, dedicated her breaststroke race to her former Bangor YMCA Barracuda and Bangor High teammate, the late Shirley Averill MacDonald. This expression deeply stirred the hearts of this reporter, his daughters and sister-in-law Kimberly Averill Dickson, a former teammate of Heather and Shirley.