Saving Swimming from itself

Every year, there are pre-season workouts, and then there is the pre-season meeting.

The captains and coaches of Penn men's swimming sit down and lay out the rules for the upcoming season. How many practices can you miss? Can you drink two or three days in advance of a meet?

But 2006 was different. In response to what had happened that summer, they discussed their illegal drug policy.

It was not a throwaway mention. After that meeting, they decided to address the team at large.

"We made it very clear that anything like that wasn't going to be happening during the season," then-captain Brandon Thompson said. "We had to have this talk with the team. We wanted to get everyone on the same page before things got really heavy."

According to Thompson and other sources, that meeting led at least one person to leave the team.

Coach Mike Schnur says he believes that in his 15 years coaching at Penn, no swimmer or diver has ever used an illegal drug.

But former team members say that the team has cracked down on several incidents of drug and alcohol use, and has cleaned house in an attempt to become more competitive.

* * *

That summer afternoon - the one that got it all started - wasn't supposed to be anything more than a social event. Meet the rookies, maybe toss a football around.

A stocky freshman stood out, and not because he could break a tackle. He spoke tersely and seemed to be from another planet. His teammates reached for many of the same words: self-absorbed, strange, abrupt.

"I didn't find him to be the most stable of human beings," then-teammate Nick Corsano said. "He was always very . out there. I don't know why."

Brian Gartner put his finger on what Corsano couldn't.

"He was just doing his own thing. Looking for drugs all the time. Really crazy about it," said Gartner, a senior who left the team in the fall. "A lot of the older guys took note of him right away.

"He was, quite frankly, just a jerk."

The enigmatic freshman, who would not be interviewed, never swam for Penn. Schnur kicked him off the team, according to Gartner.

Schnur denies kicking the freshman off the team and says he simply never showed up to swim. The coach wasn't willing to "re-recruit" him; after a where-are-you e-mail went unreturned, Schnur decided to move on. He says they haven't spoken since recruiting season in February 2006.

"I wouldn't know him if he bit me in the leg walking down the street," Schnur said.

Schnur also denies that drug use came up in the coaches-captains meeting.

* * *

Penn is a mediocre team. The Quakers finished eighth out of nine in the last three Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League championships.

But almost half their team records have been set in the last two years. Most of the record-breakers are underclassmen, so improvement may be on the horizon.

Schnur wants a team that embraces stricter rules and will stick around to reap the benefits. But it is a work in progress.

In the winter, two drunk swimmers showed up early for morning practice and harassed the security guards at Pottruck gym. One got his walking papers; another repented and managed to stay on. The swimmer who was ousted did not return a request for comment.

"I believe very strongly in second chances," Schnur said.

There have been other drinking incidents this year, but the coach says none were as serious.

Many current and former team members were reluctant to speak on the record about drug or alcohol use, given the sensitivity of the situation.

* * *

Before 2006, Schnur used to lose two, maybe three guys a year to attrition. That rate has doubled; 10 have come off the roster in the last two years.

Gone, too, are the lax standards they enjoyed.

"My freshman year, I guess we really didn't have so much of a mandatory attendance policy," senior Devon Carr said. "Obviously, people had to show up, but it wasn't really enforced."

Morning-practice miscreants who passed on 5 a.m. wakeup calls are history. Schnur now bans anyone who hasn't made 95 percent of practices from swimming in meets. He ratcheted up the workload to include more aerobics and conditioning.

"It was new leadership [and] definitely the coaches finally being like 'OK, we should get a little more serious,'" Carr said.

Schnur had always frowned on swimmers who pledged fraternities as freshmen, straining themselves in the thick of the season. Things got no easier for them, either.

"Can he stop them or kick them off Penn's swim team? I have no idea," Corsano said. "I've never seen him do it. He's just not going to be happy about it."

In the past, he had banned all freshmen pledges from swimming at EISLs. The ban was lifted this year, but many freshmen have passed on Greek life rather than try to balance it with Schnur's tighter ship.

Over half of last year's departures were in fraternities. Team members said several people have left recently because they could no longer manage the two, although some have stuck it out.

The specter of attrition will always loom, even for older and more accomplished swimmers. Most have been at it since age six: Fifteen years of wear-and-tear on the shoulders feels a lot worse than 12 years.

But as Schnur tries to bring his program to respectability, he faces a coach's dilemma: How hard can he push?

"Are my guys angels outside the pool all the time? I don't know," he said. "But what our guys do during the season is very, very straightened out this year."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.