“Just Keep Swim­ming” 30 Min­utes away

MISHAWAKA, IN—I felt my fins get cold, or what was that word again? Oh yes, feet. My feet were cold as I got closer to jump­ing into the chlo­ri­nated wa­ter. I knew what was to come: chipped nails, frayed hair, dry skin, and bleached eye­brows. Trust me, mer­maids are fairy­tales be­cause no one can pull this look off. But none of these fac­tors took away from my swim­ming at the new Bea­con Health and Fit­ness Cen­ter in Elkhart. 

The fa­cil­ity is about 20 to 30 min­utes away from cam­pus, de­pend­ing on traf­fic. The car rides can be long, but it’s noth­ing that some good mu­sic and con­ver­sa­tion can’t fix.  

As a team, we are all for­tu­nate to swim in such an amaz­ing and im­pres­sive fa­cil­ity. Walk­ing into the fa­cil­ity, it still had that new build­ing smell. Every vis­i­ble sur­face was clean, and some parts even looked un­touched.

Walk­ing to­wards the pool from the locker rooms you have to pass through a win­dowed hall­way look­ing out into the pool area. As soon as you open the door, you are struck with amaze­ment be­cause of the space. Walk­ing onto the other side of the pool, you get a view of the seat­ing area.

Let’s just say that swim par­ents are go­ing to be grate­ful for new and im­proved seats com­pared to the bleach­ers they sat on at our high schools.  

The Cen­ter pro­vides the Bethel swim team with a ten lane Olympic pool with two bulk­heads to ad­just the size. We have the op­por­tu­nity to prac­tice in eight lanes with a 25 or 50-me­ter length, or even at 25 or 50-yard lengths if we so de­sired. Un­for­tu­nately, since we don’t have a dive team yet, there are lanes un­der the Olympic div­ing plat­forms that are open to the pub­lic as we prac­tice. 

At around ten feet deep, the pool is per­fect for swim­ming fast and for break­ing records. A deep pool is some­thing to get ex­cited about as a swim­mer.  

One of many pos­i­tive at­trib­utes that Coach Deb Thomp­son pos­sesses, is her en­gage­ment with the en­tire team through­out prac­tice. Even though this leaves lit­tle to no room for lanes to skip yards, her in­volve­ment with each step of the way is go­ing to cre­ate a foun­da­tion for her to know our skill sets and be aware of our habits dur­ing prac­tice times. 

The ma­jor­ity of the team are fresh­men, with the ex­cep­tion of a cou­ple. Know­ing this makes a lot of what each stu­dent-ath­lete is go­ing through in­di­vid­u­ally a bit eas­ier know­ing that we are all go­ing through the same thing. It is Bethel’s first year with a swim team and we just have to re­mem­ber to just keep swim­ming.