It was a pretty typical meet atmosphere in some ways Friday, Dec. 27, at the Sweet Home swimming pool.
Swim team members clustered along the deck, where their team bench is located. Family and friends filled the stands. Sweet Home coaches sat in their camp chairs near the starting blocks.
But the opposition wasn’t another high school this time. They were all former Huskies, there for the first-ever Alumni Meet.
At least 26 of them, ranging from last year’s graduates to one who graduated in 1976.
Head Coach A Jay Bronson said his staff came up with the idea of a competition matching alums with his team as they were trying to plan out the season for the Huskies.
“We were looking for a fun meet to do,” Bronson said. “During the Christmas break we do a lot of hard training and, you know, a lot of people are back home for Christmas. Families are here, and this is such a rich swimming community, I thought it’d be great to see if we could bring in some old-timers to swim.”
Bronson said the inaugural event was publicized largely through word of mouth.
Attendees who signed up to participate were: Blake Arthur, Class of 2024; Meagan Baham (2022); Hunter Calderwood (2021); Bruce Davis (1988); Lucia Davis (2017); Mia Davis (2018); Seth Gaylord (2019); Josie Hewitt (2022); Jacob Kennedy (2022); Anna Leea (2020); Rawlins Lupoli (2018);
Roland Lupoli (2018); Rylee Markell (2024); Olivia Martineau (2021); Garrett Peake (2024); Rachelle Reynolds (1990); Jessica Rice (2017); Cameron Taber (2018); Ben Tolman (2024); Chloe Tyler (2022), Rachel Tyler (1997); Frank Whitton (1998); Caryn Wise (1976); Verna Wise (1980); and Lauren Yon (2018).
“It was fun,” said Bruce Davis, who is one of the top boys to have ever swum for the Huskies.
Davis said he last swam competitively at Kansas in 1992 before embarking on a career with the Linn County Sheriff’s Office. “I haven’t swam in 33 years.”
He jokingly added that he and his wife Jennifer, who also competed for Kansas and who served as a timekeeper at the alumni meet, “came down and did some laps for, like, three weeks or something, just to make sure I
could actually still swim.”
Chloe Tyler, whose mother Rachel was also a top swimmer for the Huskies, now swims for Illinois State University after setting or contributing to multiple school records and state championships during her time with the Huskies.
“I thought it was cool, just being able to see everyone,” she said. “I haven’t seen a bunch of people that I swam with for years, and getting to race with, like, old coaches and stuff, too, has been awesome. It was super fun.
“So definitely it was a cool thing to be starting this.”
It was enjoyable from the sidelines as well, said Bronson, who was perched next to former head coach and 
now-assistant Doug Peargin, who has coached at Sweet Home since 1972 and who personally had coached everyone in the pool, current and alums.
“We had a few races where we had three or four state champions who were all in there at the same time.” Bronson said. “It was fun to watch.”
Peargin said he had “a great time.”
“I thought it worked out really well,” he said. “It’s definitely something we need to go with every year. We had more alumni there than our kids and a lot of (the alums) didn’t know about it. Next year it will be twice as big.”
He noted that the current Huskies swam “well” against the veterans, probably because they were pushed.
“They had a ball,” Peargin said. “Our breaststroker (Shayne Schuster) beat Bruce Davis, who is the school record holder in the breaststroke.
“Some of those (alums) are really fast. The kids see their names on the record board, and they say, ‘Wow, that’s her. She IS fast.’
“We had quite a few personal bests.”
The alumni, Peargin added, weren’t there to coast through the meet.
“To get to come back and do that, they still had some fire in the tank. They came to compete.”
He noted that Verna Wise was on the team when he started coaching at Sweet Home.
“I still care for every one of them,” he said of the kids – young and old – who were in the pool.
“We spent a lot of time together. Not one of them is a quitter.”
