With fall sports coming to an end, winter sports have officially started. Sophomore swimmer Ethan Jaeger is thrilled to start the new season.

“I am very confident and excited. I feel very ready to get in the pool and get stronger,” Jaeger said. 

During any athletic season, there are always ups and downs.

“One of my downs is usually during the end of the semester when it gets more stressful, which affects my body for a couple of days. My favorite parts of high school swim season definitely are the meets. We all get together to cheer each other on for the thing we’ve all been practicing for,” Jaeger said. 

Last year, being a freshman and getting his first high school swimming experience was new for him. All athletes look to improve from their past year, whether it was successful or not. 

“My main hope for this year is to improve my breaststroke, so I can have a greater individual medley overall. My other strokes are pretty fast in terms of short distance, but when I’m swimming longer, I’m a lot slower,” Jaeger said. 

An essential part of improving an athlete’s game is training as often as possible to get better. 

“I do my best to train for swimming year-round because it’s my main sport, but I also run cross country and track, so that makes everyday practice difficult during the swimming off-season,” Jaeger said. 

Swimmers especially have to keep their body in better shape than most other athletes.

“For me, staying in shape is just something that’s a simple part of life. If I want to improve a lot, I can’t be good one season, slack off, then come back the following season and hope to be as good as I was a year ago,” Jaeger said. 

A big part of winning is preparing to do so.

“Preparation for a meet is all mental. If I just calm my nerves and get good sleep the previous night, allowing me to gain a whole new mindset and physical feeling before the meet. I usually do this by listening to some of my favorite ‘70s and ‘80s rock ballads then reading for a while. Finally, I will have a nice long warm-up the day before the meet with the team,” Jaeger said. 

Every team has a rival, most of these being MIC opponents.

“Although it sounds kind of cliché, my greatest opponent is myself. I am the person who can choose whether to be average or great. I have the capacity to be the best and the strongest, but I have to use determination to do so. If I let myself just be an average swimmer, I can never break records. So at the end of the day, I’m the person that wants to stop, but I need to overcome the temptation and best myself in my events,” Jaeger said.