SMLS Swim Team’s Guide to Making Waves

This year, our school theme is Make Waves and who makes waves better than our school’s swim team? We interviewed 4 members of the 2024-25 winter swim team about topics like collaboration, team values, perseverance, and how the swim team has helped them make an impact. So here’s our swim team’s 3 point guide to making effective waves. 

1. The Importance of a Cheer

Throughout the interviews, each member talked about the support that they received and gave, but the gist of it was best said by Mariska Vandennoort (Grade 10), “Even though everyone participates in their own races, each person can still support one another.” Life isn’t something that we go through alone, we have our families, peers (or coworkers), and our friends. An encouraging “You got this!” or “Don’t give up now!” can definitely go a long way in helping others gain self confidence, give them the courage to keep going, build community, and uplift people’s spirits. As Alessia Mayta (Grade 10) so aptly put it, “I don’t think anyone on the swim team would be able to accomplish what they did without the constant support and cheering of each other.” 

1. Make Sure to Check In

“Being on the SMLS swim team meant working with people of varying skill levels and swimming backgrounds. Because of this, I felt like there was a general disconnect in the team. As the season progressed, it became easier for me to pick up on what different teammates needed and how to adjust or work around those differences with them.” - Bingyin Geng, Grade 10. 

Dahlia Sabry (Grade 11) also finds this extremely useful when she’s “doing work with others on projects, the swimming aspect helps [her] take into account other individuals, and allows [her] to make sure that everybody is doing well.” Even though you may not know exactly what people are dealing with, having the ability to notice and shift your approach of encouragement and interaction will allow you to seamlessly translate into any group environment and make those around you feel their importance to the community.  

1. Consistency, Consistency, Consistency

It’s pretty difficult to make waves if you don’t show up “especially with a sport like swimming that requires early morning practices…I would say that the effort the team contributed was what ultimately enabled us to qualify for both individual and relay events at the OFSSA swim meet.” (Bingyin Geng, Grade 10)

For swimming, and any sport or interaction, it’s important to show up, even when you don’t want to or it feels uncomfortable because when everybody decides to show up, it leads to an amazing end result that you can be proud of. It’s also important to note that sometimes team members don’t show up, but that doesn’t change the difference that you can make. So, always perform to the best of your ability no matter what other people are doing. 

These 3 tips aim to showcase the many ways that people are making impacts in the SMLS community and hopefully encourage you to do the same. Although making waves can seem like a momentous task, ripples matter too. “I think that the swim team, like any other club/sport, gives you the chance to connect on a smaller scale with peers you’d likely never have met otherwise. For me, joining the swim team definitely made the larger community feel more approachable,” (Bingyin Geng, Grade 10). Whether you play a sport, are in a club, cocurricular class, or a leadership position, always try to cheer people on, observe those around you, and keep contributing your best because that’s how we create a stronger community and make an impact.  

Thank you to Dahlia Sabry, Mariska Vandennoort, Alessia Mayta, and Bingyin Geng for sharing their experiences as well as Isabel Elkins and Rebekah Alwin for conducting interviews.   

“Cheer [people] on even though they maybe can’t hear you… [they’ll] still feel seen.”

• Alessia Mayta