CLUB TRIBE WINS 2022 USMS SUMMER NATIONALS
By Kyle Ahlgren
Club Tribe Masters Swimming realized a long-standing, long shot goal last week by winning the team National Championship at the 2022 USMS Summer Nationals in Richmond. Sixty Club Tribe swimmers (age 19 to 76) pulled together in five mammoth sessions to prevail over 130 other clubs, including perennial powerhouses Swim Fort Lauderdale and Sarasota Sharks as well as several teams in the area that made big pushes for this meet. Here are the final team standings for the Top 20 clubs:
FINAL TEAM STANDINGS
2022 USMS SUMMER NATIONALS
COMBINED MEN AND WOMEN (TOP 20)
Club Tribe 2,205
Swim Fort Lauderdale 2,046.5
Sarasota Sharks 1,830
Reston Masters 982
E Team 561
St. Pete Masters 432
Palmetto Masters 417
DCAC 372
Colonials 1776 351
San Diego Swim Masters 350
Lone Star Masters 343
Nickel City Splash 281
Palm Beach Masters 280
O*H*I*O Masters 273
Little Rock Masters 230
Indy Aquatic Masters 218
Terrapin Masters 201
Fredericksburg AFF 187.5
Phoenix Swim Club 184
TIDE Swimming 172
The scope and scale of this victory – as well as its personal meaning – cannot be fully captured in a recap. I will instead simply convey: (1) the top-line stats; (2) some important themes of this team triumph; and (3) the jaw-dropping list of records and championships – both individual and relay. I would also commend you to the posts and comments on Facebook that express valuable personal perspectives on the meet and our team, as well as all the pictures, which manifest so much joy, friendship, support and success.
Every single Club Tribe swimmer made important contributions to our victory; the narrow final margin proves that we needed absolutely everybody. This national championship belongs not only to those who were on deck in Richmond, but to every single one of you who has ever been a part of Club Tribe in any way. Since 2014, this team and this championship have been built slowly – brick by brick – by all of you.
TOP-LINE STATS
As detailed below, Club Tribe relays:
Established 2 new FINA Masters World Records;
Established 6 new USMS National Records;
Won 17 national championships (5 Women, 6 Men, 6 Mixed) from the 72-99 age group to the 240-279 age group; and
Established 20 new Virginia LMSC Records (5 Women, 7 Men, 8 Mixed).
Club Tribe individual swimmers:
Took home 38 national championships (17 Women, 21 Men); and
Established 42 new Virginia LMSC Records (21 Women, 21 Men).
CLUB TRIBE INDIVIDUAL HIGH POINT LEADERS (TOP 10)
Lucas Bureau 64
Gabby Mizerak 60
Julie Anderson 58
Fall Willeboordse 57
Dave Bell 55
Anna Sheng 54
Andrew Brower 53
John Rockwell 49
9t. Lewis Rockwell 48
9t. Shannon Greene 48
Click here for comprehensive meet results.
THEMES OF AN EPIC TEAM VICTORY
GENERATIONAL DIVERSITY
One of the things I love most about Club Tribe is its generational diversity. There are powerful forces at work in our economy, society, and culture that tend to pull us apart by age. On this team, all of that gets wiped out in the most refreshing way (both on and off deck). We all have much to learn from one another in both directions, and this team lets us do that. Our spread of ages is also – mathematically – the reason we won this meet; simply put, no other team was able to be elite across such a wide range.
GENDER BALANCE
We are and always will be a single team. We paid very little attention to the separate Men’s and Women’s scoreboards; they’re interesting, but they don’t reflect what we are about. It came as no surprise that in order to be a top team at this meet, our Women needed our Men and our Men needed our Women; neither group topped their own rankings. And the Mixed relays were bananas.
LEADERSHIP
Rich Williams is the best coach in Masters Swimming and this victory is a reflection of his tireless devotion to his swimmers’ training and his prowess as an on-deck coach in a high-pressure championship meet environment. It is also a reflection of the many other people on Club Tribe who have emerged as leaders of this team. Our younger cohort has terrific leaders, our older cohort has terrific leaders, and we’ve had teammates emerge from Blacksburg to Richmond to Winchester to Fairfax and beyond to help lead this team. None of this was possible without them.
PERSEVERENCE
A lot of people had to overcome a lot of things just to show up for this meet (we also had teammates for whom attendance was literally impossible, and this championship belongs to them too). We have teammates who struggled with cancer, COVID and other illnesses suffered by themselves and/or their loved ones. We have teammates who fought through injuries that should have kept them out of the meet. We have many teammates who spend a significant portion of their lives caring for loved ones who are aged or who have special challenges and needs – getting away for a mere day or two can be tough for them. We have young people whose college and post-graduate lives are riddled with complexities and headwinds that those of us who breezed through the 90s and 00s can scarcely imagine. All of us had to figure out how to train and try to stay healthy when the world shut down. And yet we persevered. Together.
BRAVERY
It takes a lot of guts to do this. It takes a lot of guts to take a single rep from the blocks if you know that it is physically impossible to swim as fast as you once did. It takes a lot of guts to be a young person and link up with a bunch of intense and eccentric Boomers and Gen Xers. We have teammates who were never competitive swimmers or who last swam a meet when they were small children. We have swimmers who fear and detest the Long Course pool. We had a teammate show up for her very first Masters meet only to be told that for her first swim she would be key to breaking a very fast relay National Record (and it turned out she was). We have teammates who prepped in a matter of weeks or days, knowing that they wouldn’t really have time to get ready. All of this takes true strength and bravery.
SELFLESSNESS AND SELF-SACRIFICE
Nothing great is ever accomplished without self-sacrifice – it’s a secret law of Nature. This victory was born of so much genuine selflessness it hardly makes sense to try to name it. Our Head Coach took himself off a national championship relay to maximize team points. One of the fastest Breaststrokers at the meet swam on our “C” Medley Relay as the lynchpin of a strategy that paid off across our entire slate. We left a number of big records on the table for the sake of the team, including a couple in the 72-99 age group that would have been so much fun to watch. Many of our teammates swam off events (including some of the most grueling options on the menu) solely to score team points; there were Club Tribers who thought they were swAmmers contesting the 400 IM, 200s of stroke, and Distance Free races. Many swimmers on our team probably would have been faster if they didn’t have as many swims over the course of the meet. Every single one of you donated a piece of yourselves for this win.
TEAM SPIRIT
From the moment of its inception, Club Tribe has been a team that cheers for each other, supports one another, and believes that swim meets are more fun when we invest in a team atmosphere. This is the first time in my life that I haven’t been the person on the team who cheers the most and the loudest; I am now a distant second to Mick and perhaps a step or two behind many others. For those of you who are newer to Club Tribe, please understand that this isn’t just a creature of winning – we were like this when we were a small, unknown team and we have been like this ever since. I wouldn’t want it any other way, and although I have great respect for our competition, I know that I simply couldn’t be on any other team. You can throw away all the records and stats and just show me a video of the Club Tribe cheering section for the 400 IM and 200 Fly and I’m good.
THE HELPERS
As Rich and I have mentioned a few times, for many reasons we both knew several months ago that we couldn’t do everything that we would normally do for a big meet – we needed help. A lot of it. I’m not quite sure how to calculate the points that are attributable directly to Michele, Mick, Vince, and Sydney for their efforts to keep us fed, housed, organized, decked out in Club Tribe gear – the list goes on. Along with the rest of the Planning Committee and all of you recruiters, boosters, and promoters out there, those four people handled hundreds of invisible but important things that collectively were a key to our victory. There are myriad examples, but I’m partial to the moment on Friday night when we brought John and Lewis Rockwell into the Club Tribe Situation Room as an extra set of minds on the Mixed 200 Medley Relay puzzle, and also to the moment on Saturday night when we received a text from Dave Bell with detailed, accurate projections for the meet’s endgame. If I learned nothing else in Richmond about Club Tribe, it’s that we have so many teammates who are clamoring to help. We haven’t even begun to tap the full resources of this team.
KATIE
Some of us knew and loved Katie Grauman Grier for a quarter century. Others heard a lot about her last weekend but did not have the unique pleasure of knowing her. All of us came together to honor her with this championship, and I am profoundly grateful for that. Katie’s work on this Earth lives on in many places – most importantly in her beloved children, Sophia and Ian. But surely it also lives on in this team and in this national championship; it gives me great consolation and repose to know that Club Tribe and Katie are bound together forever in the fast lane.
RECORDS AND CHAMPIONSHIPS
FINA MASTERS WORLD RECORDS (2)
Women’s 200 Medley Relay (200-239) - 2:08.87: S. Williams, K. Harris, M. Conze, F. Willeboordse
Women’s 200 Free Relay (200-239) – 1:54.72: F. Willeboordse, C. Hurtubise, S. Williams, M. Conze
FINA World Records are located here.
USMS NATIONAL RECORDS (6)
Women’s 200 Medley Relay (200-239) - 2:08.87: S. Williams, K. Harris, M. Conze, F. Willeboordse
Women’s 200 Free Relay (200-239) – 1:54.72: F. Willeboordse, C. Hurtubise, S. Williams, M. Conze
Men’s 100-119 200 Medley Relay (100-119) – 1:44.55: S. Kettlewell-Sites, A. Brower, L. Bureau, M. Healey
Mixed 200 Medley Relay (100-119) – 1:53.91: A. Kenna, L. Bureau, G. Mizerak, M. Healey
Mixed 200 Free Relay (100-119) – 1:41.71: L. Bureau, M. Healey, A. Kenna, G. Mizerak
Mixed 200 Free Relay (72-99) – 1:44.64: S. Kettlewell-Sites, S. Glass, A. Sheng, J. Anderson
USMS National Records are located here.
RELAY NATIONAL CHAMPIONS – WOMEN (5)
200 Medley Relay (200-239) – 2:08.87: S. Williams, K. Harris, M. Conze, F. Willeboordse
200 Free Relay (200-239) – 1:54.72: F. Willeboordse, C. Hurtubise, S. Williams, M. Conze
200 Free Relay (120-159) – 1:55.13: G. Mizerak, K. Gass, M. Choe, A. Kenna
200 Medley Relay (72-99) – 2:10.34: A. Sheng, C. Costa, J. Anderson, S. Kulczycki
200 Free Relay (72-99) – 1:57.96: J. Anderson, C. Costa, S. Greene, A. Sheng
RELAY NATIONAL CHAMPIONS – MEN (6)
200 Medley Relay (200-239) – 2:03.43: D. Bell, R. Williams, C. Harbourt, R. Belmar
200 Free Relay (200-239) – 1:47.64: R. Williams, D. Bell, M. Tingstrom, J. Ruckdeschel
200 Free Relay (120-159) – 1:40.65: A. Brower, E. Elsaesser, A. Glass, A. Henderson
200 Medley Relay (100-119) – 1:44.55: S. Kettlewell-Sites, A. Brower, L. Bureau, M. Healey
200 Free Relay (100-119) – 1:34.83: M. Healey, S. Kettlewell-Sites, S. Glass, L. Bureau
200 Free Relay (72-99) – 1:45.90: J. Tolar, G. Ramsdell, R. Bracewell, L. Rockwell
RELAY NATIONAL CHAMPIONS – MIXED (6)
200 Free Relay (240-279) – 1:56.43: D. Slater, G. Harris, M. Restrepo, S. Williams
200 Medley Relay (200-239) – 2:04.44: D. Bell, R. Williams, M. Conze, F. Willeboordse
200 Free Relay (200-239) – 1:50.10: D. Bell, J. Ruckdeschel, F. Willeboordse, M. Conze
200 Medley Relay (100-119) – 1:53.91: A. Kenna, L. Bureau, G. Mizerak, M. Healey
200 Free Relay (100-119) – 1:41.71: L. Bureau, M. Healey, A. Kenna, G. Mizerak
200 Free Relay (72-99) – 1:44.64: S. Kettlewell-Sites, S. Glass, A. Sheng, J. Anderson
INDIVIDUAL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS – WOMEN (17)
Gabby Mizerak (3): 30-34 50 FR, 50 Fly, 100 Fly
Julie Anderson (3): 18-24 200 FR, 400 FR, 800 FR
Susan Williams (2): 55-59 50 BK, 50 Fly
Fall Willeboordse (2): 55-59 50 FR, 100 FR
Anna Sheng (2): 100 BK, 200 BK
Marie Restrepo (1): 60-64 50 FR
Kristen Harris (1): 45-49 200 BR
Courtney Hurtubise (1): 40-44 50 BR
Shaina Kulczycki (1): 25-29 200 BK
Anna Kenna (1): 18-24 50 BK
INDIVIDUAL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS – MEN (21)
Lucas Bureau (5): 25-29 100 FR, 200 FR, 50 Fly, 100 Fly, 200 IM
Andrew Brower (3): 25-29 50 BR, 100 BR, 200 BR
Dave Bell (2): 45-49 100 FR, 100 Fly
Evan Elsaesser (2): 35-39 50 Fly, 100 Fly
Matt Healey (2): 18-24 50 FR, 50 Fly
Vince Romano (1): 75-79 1,500 FR
Doug Slater (1): 65-69 100 BK
Jonathan Ruckdeschel (1): 50-54 50 FR
Rich Williams (1): 45-49 50 BR
Sidney Glass (1): 30-34 50 BK
Sam Kettlewell-Sites (1): 25-29 50 BK
Lewis Rockwell (1): 18-24 100 BK
VIRGINIA LMSC RELAY RECORDS – WOMEN (5)
200 Medley Relay (200-239) – 2:08.87: S. Williams, K. Harris, M. Conze, F. Willeboordse
200 Free Relay (200-239) – 1:54.72: F. Willeboordse, C. Hurtubise, S. Williams, M. Conze
200 Medley Relay (160-199) – 2:10.22: G. Mizerak, C. Hurtubise, K. Gass, M. Choe
200 Medley Relay (72-99) – 2:10.34: A. Sheng, C. Costa, J. Anderson, S. Kulczycki
200 Free Relay (72-99) – 1:57.96: J. Anderson, C. Costa, S. Greene, A. Sheng
VIRGINIA LMSC RELAY RECORDS – MEN (7)
200 Medley Relay (200-239) – 2:03.43: D. Bell, R. Williams, C. Harbourt, R. Belmar
200 Free Relay (200-239) – 1:47.64: R. Williams, D. Bell, M. Tingstrom, J. Ruckdeschel
200 Medley Relay (120-159) – 1:55.38: A. Henderson, B. Fratkin, E. Elsaesser, K. Major
200 Free Relay (120-159) – 1:40.65: A. Brower, E. Elsaesser, A. Glass, A. Henderson
200 Medley Relay (100-119) – 1:44.55: S. Kettlewell-Sites, A. Brower, L. Bureau, M. Healey
200 Free Relay (100-119) – 1:34.83: M. Healey, S. Kettlewell-Sites, S. Glass, L. Bureau
200 Free Relay (72-99) – 1:45.90: J. Tolar, G. Ramsdell, R. Bracewell, L. Rockwell
VIRGINIA LMSC RELAY RECORDS – MIXED (8)
200 Free Relay (240-279) – 1:56.43: D. Slater, G. Harris, M. Restrepo, S. Williams
200 Medley Relay (200-239) – 2:04.44: D. Bell, R. Williams, M. Conze, F. Willeboordse
200 Free Relay (200-239) – 1:50.10: D. Bell, J. Ruckdeschel, F. Willeboordse, M. Conze
200 Medley Relay (120-159) – 1:55.94: A. Sheng, A. Brower, E. Elsaesser, C. Hurtubise
200 Free Relay (120-159) – 1:48.56: L. Rockwell, A. Brower, C. Hurtubise, K. Gass
200 Medley Relay (100-119) – 1:53.91: A. Kenna, L. Bureau, G. Mizerak, M. Healey
200 Free Relay (100-119) – 1:41.71: L. Bureau, M. Healey, A. Kenna, G. Mizerak
200 Free Relay (72-99) – 1:44.64: S. Kettlewell-Sites, S. Glass, A. Sheng, J. Anderson
VIRGINIA LMSC INDIVIDUAL RECORDS – WOMEN (21)
Fall Willeboordse (5): 55-59 50 FR, 100 FR, 100 BK, 50 BR, 100 BR
Gabby Mizerak (5): 30-34 50 FR, 100 FR, 50 BK(r), 100 BK, 50 Fly
Margaret Conze (3): 50-54 50 FR, 100 FR, 50 Fly
Susan Williams (2): 55-59 50 BK, 50 Fly
Kristen Harris (2): 45-49 50 BR, 200 BR
Anna Sheng (2): 100 BK, 200 BK
Marie Restrepo (1): 60-64 50 FR
Anna Kenna (1): 18-24 50 BK
VIRGINIA LMSC INDIVIDUAL RECORDS – MEN (21)
Lucas Bureau (6): 25-29 50 FR(r)(tied), 100 FR, 200 FR, 50 Fly, 100 Fly, 200 IM
Doug Slater (4): 65-69 50 FR, 50 BK, 100 BK, 200 BK
Evan Elsaesser (3): 35-39 50 FR, 50 BK, 50 Fly
Andrew Brower (3): 25-29 50 BR, 100 BR, 200 BR
Sidney Glass (2): 30-34 50 FR, 50 BK
Matt Healey (2): 18-24 50 FR, 50 Fly
Sam Kettlewell-Sites (1): 25-29 50 BK(r)
Virginia LMSC Records are located here.