sportsmanship today show is focused on peters township high school swimming the boys team recently came in second with field and night in the state the girls team came in sixteenth in the state of pennsylvania with me today are steven hopped the junior champion in one hundred ba season let's start of the beginning of the season the trials stephen paul than on the team for a while as juniors carly and cassidy tell me about the trials what was it like to try out and become part of that people started swimming to well we didn't have any child so we it was kind of our first practice you had to get in with everyone high school team and pick your lane and find out where you really fit in with the team and it was really like like simple like you kind of like gon watch you should coach like only he knew and everything so it was a pretty informal trial everyone makes a team that if they come to the trials and they can swim so you would be you would recommend that for someone that was maybe on the fence about maybe i c a school maybe i can't swim in high school so it kind of depends it differs a little bit year to year some year we've had cuts most years we don't just depends on how many kids end up trying out so low shares we don't have any cots and we never really have official try outs where you're doing like a specific thing and you know coach is watching it's kind of just like you practice and you show what you want to show and he he kind of just looks observes everyone equally and kind of picks you kind of can show him what you're going to put bring to the team i think it's like it's more of up to you it's more of a you know internal that you have to do it's not you know something's a team sport but it's also an individual so it's however much effort you're going to put into it so you know you can't you know do more than a twenty five you know you can either try and do it or you can just kind of back out but most of the time people try and end up succeeding you know and they'll turn to fantastic swimmers by the end of the year if you would highly recommend someone that's  great you know that's sitting on the bubble so i don't know if i could really you know make make the high school team to go out and yeah i i honestly came out of this team and i actually started swimming seventh grade three weeks after the season started can turn into it's it's a sport that a lot of people haven't tried it's not like running or baseball or football where you kind of play them in your backyard a ton you kind of know something's really different it's you know a lot of people i've never swam competitively outside of like being on a team so from my freshman year in the beginning my freshman year i would say i was definitely in the bottom five percent of the teams barely new audience trucks and by the end of my freshman year i had all five four  and then my best time ever and it was like a great season light i never thought i would get there so i'm really happy that i tried it and i really suggest it for anyone because you kind of never know where your talents lie you've been in swimming since you started so great so let's go always loved being around pool and everything ever since i was little and i joined a summer team when i was six and then i actually started swimming on a wide team in fourth grade and then finally in eighth grade i joined the club dean right and steve when when did you get involved i started swimming when i was away six not competitively though i had a pool at my house so i was you know kind of did some swimming but i had a few accidents with us try to go i kind of drove that like drive that swimming is that the sportsmanship really comes from the team as a whole and so in a lot of other sports it's really individual it's are you with your coach with swimming it's we're on the same area we can all see each other you can see exactly how fast you're going you have a clock running all the time and so any time we're doing the hard set any time we're struggling together everyone's cheering each other on everyone encouraging each other racing each other trying to make each other better and i think that's really where the sportsmanship comes in something is we're all competitive with each other i mean steve race each other all the time but every day during practice we're still trying to make each other better we're not competing against each other in that way we're competing to make each other better all the time definitely  you know it's it's an individual individual sport in terms of yourself but to get better you really need that team you need that foundation and it starts with the younger kids you know when you first start swimming and it works its way up you've got maintain as you said sportsmanship and it's it's not so much as like you know just being nice you just have to be there for people when they need it you know you can we know each other so well we know when something's wrong with us we know when something has gone wrong you know outside of swimming so to be there as a team really just helps people get through the day and get through practice what about at the end of a high school me you're always singing  doing a little chant i think it was like potato chip or some some something like that who can who comes up with that and this is never change and this freshman women on the team can you can you make something happen you get a different channel you love t hand on the on the pool deck and the coaches and that's good sportsmanship there yeah and another thing we kind of do just not you know i don't know what other teams do but i just kind of an on a positive know we always go around and say something one every person on the team says one good thing that happened at the meet and so it's kind of always really nice to get some encouragement if you had a really good race or getting recognition for it and if you had a bad ratio it's disappoint people saw you try harder and i think it's not always just it's almost never just like the probably stood out to me and paul last year and maybe some of the girls are sure to and also you know the whole team in general when chan he wouldn't temperate year he got a best time every single race he just significantly got faster and faster and faster to the point where he's you know twice as fast as he was when he first started and i think that really helps as a as a whole as a team because you can really see that the depth and how far you know something goes and how far it will take you carly what is the is there a competition between the boys team and the girls you know i've heard grumblings over the over the past few years i had a son on the team and a daughter on the team and you know there's always a little trash talking in the house  but this last year for instance is you do you feel any sort of is it more camaraderie or like fighting heads or what what would you i would say like maybe like a few times of the guys i complain about us complaining belike nothing like like i think there's a lot of difference in skill set that like what girls can do and what guys can do so there's not like competition in times necessarily but it's more so of the girls or or the the boys in general we we tend to get along together you know will listen to music at practices you know getting through it but every once supportive of each other no matter practice or competition we'll we'll enjoy  the family that we have yet to where so close together now we i mean we have our problems but like they get solid we talk about them well yeah but with each other it's not there's no passive aggressive long term argument like we're all very close in each other both teams had very very successful seasons but the boys had exceptionally great season girls had a very good season two girls what did you think of the season what was your biggest win of the year wasn't thinking straight and i think if i would've just like let myself like know that i could do what i always did if i wanted i would have done a lot better but it was a really good experience to get there we're going to take a quick break little commercial break so we have our commercial people to take care of here today and we're going to return with the swimming team  that's why it's important to wash hands surfaces and fresh  org we're here today with the peters township boys and girls swimming team talking about different things concerns sportsmanship or get back into swimming let's talk about other sports you know everyone has a lot of different things going on their lives what are their sports or activities that take up significant time you guys do if anything and right now i just i'm currently enrolled in just swimming club and high school club meaning that we come in the mornings starting at five thirty and then ending at like seven right for school and go to school and then right after school at two forty two thirty five ish and then practice until about five so that's five thirty am for the five thirty am so that's a forty four forty trial track this year but that was not my strong suit so i'm just swimming right now because the irish dance evens over but it will start again in the summer now the irish stance is that that's not a school sponsored activity or sport is now we dance out of the don't mean a simple building ok and how many is it only girls in our stance are girls and guys it's mostly girls there are guys that do it but we don't have that many and how have you done in that hour how are you one of the top qualifiers like your when i was damn you know i have like what the other states and now we go to a competition called fascism and we have certain dances that we compete with compete in and then we have like a place in the move up levels and like best you could do is when worlds which is you go to a fashion and the qualify for another different bash and then you go to world this world in ireland i hope i am sometimes it is ok before a season even started we had a little with the entire boys team printed on paper how to our season layout when our beats were when the big meets where and what we're going to be doing and we all kind of had a goal right from the start i think that was really helpful for our team because we all knew what we're looking for we know we're practicing for and so it was a really big motivator for all of us i mean it's not just something that we kind of just sporadically did it's been you know in the making for  years i think the last time we were undefeated was like two thousand and twelve maybe something like that so you always have that drive you know to get back to be that section champ and i but i was thinking more this summer i think probably i would say about august we had a group meeting when our old coach you know had to pick a new job and not that it was he just kind of left and got a new job elsewhere in the state  we kind of how to option and we knew we had a solid team going out we had a lot of seniors juniors a lot of freshmen a lot of soft more we knew could make an impact on this team and i think we made a so it impact kind of scared some people you won your race there how did it feel good that would be the lesson for first on this i didn't think about it too much i didn't really think about that race until about a week before i started training for it so i thought i had lack of training so i and i usually don't normally go to bed at eleven so kind of the sat there and whatever my hundred back race countless and numerous times so i didn't end up going to bed till about twelve but during that time i knew exactly how i wanted to swim it  i knew i had some strict competition i had four very good kids in that race and it was going to come down to you know hundredths of a second so my my whole thing was go for it and whatever happens at the seventy five  so i kind of just went into the race really focused and ready to go and surprise myself even awesome and we do a lot of swimmers go up to states this year states is up at bucknell that's some unusual weather you know  then but it was like a lot of fun when you get there and you with the whole team again people that made it to states and then you go out to eat just like a lot of fun in like just like the i just liked that there were other people there with me i think it would've been kind of a lot on if i was qualified by myself so i was really glad that i really went and we were able to all be there and support each other you know good good result balance individually each of you schoolwork versus swimming so i don't know about for them but coming up in the morning that means you kind of have to go to bed early you can't be staying up till twelve so that's  teachers here are actually most of them are very nice they let us you know replenish our energy during first period and i think that really helps you go to school and then after school you so much again and then you're guys you know i'm kind of i kind of push that i can definitely be grueling like it's i mean i don't think any of us would deny that it's really really tough sometimes to be getting up in the morning knowing you're going to be practicing again that afternoon and  i think that as a team we all really motivate each other so like every morning i wake up at four fifty i do not want to be up and i just want to turn my alarm off and go right back to that i think about there's thirty other people that are going to be that are doing the same thing exact thing as me right now they've been there last night they're sore they're tired they're just like me and they're ready to go and they're getting up and that's kind of what really motivates me and so it's tough balancing school it's definitely a lot sometimes but i think we have a really good a really understanding coach this year so i know sometimes like we had we don't like practice or have like some kind of warm up before our meets if we want to we're different things like that and so he was really understanding with talking to us if you told him i have a really big test tomorrow like i can't come into practice today like i need to be home study and he completely understand he's really open to always talking about that kind of stuff so i think that really helps with the school aspect all for me i know there are a lot of nights that i was up until one or two in the morning finishing homework and projects and then getting up at five the next day and it was it was hard to like to go to practice and then go to school and then kno that you have to get back in the water but like they all said with the team we all motivate each other to come back like it's it's more like i see them more than i see my actual family so they've become like a second family to me so it's like you want to go because you i do my own and i'm yeah well we're almost done here with the fun the hard questions are going to something fun prom you know right into proper praful balls real quick you guys all going to prom no one's going to you're the future leaders of the team your freshman how how does house leadership play into what you do as swimmers and all others with this a lot of that is because we need someone to lead the team like we don't we can't just we all help each other but we get there and i think everybody really need or want to thank you guys for so you know today in talking about leadership and sportsmanship and swimming in general and how we get more people on in this what mean and all the other good