The Morning Swim Show, March 6, 2012: New Trier High School Talks About Breaking Three-Minute Barrier in Relay

PHOENIX, Arizona, March 6. ON today's edition of The Morning Swim Show, we visit with the members of the national record-setting 400 freestyle relay from New Trier High School.

Sam Skinner, Jack Mangan, Reed Malone and Max Grodecki talk about the year-long goal of breaking the three-minute barrier in the relay, which set a national high school record, and how the swim was more important in this 100th year of New Trier High School swimming. Be sure to visit SwimmingWorld.TV for more video interviews.

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Morning Swim Show Transcripts
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(Note: This is an automated service where some typos and grammatical errors may occur.)

Peter Busch: Welcome to The Morning Swim Show for Tuesday, March 6th 2012. I'm your host Peter Busch. In the FINIS monitor today we'll talk to the guys from New Trier High School in Illinois who just broke the overall high school record in the 400free relay. They join us right now in the FINIS monitor from Winnetka, Illinois. Hey guys, welcome to The Morning Swim Show. How are you?

Sam Skinner: Good. Thanks for having us on.

Peter Busch: Hey, we're so sorry if we had to pull you out of class. I'm sure you're devastated.

Reed Malone: Yeah, Spanish.

Peter Busch: All right. I'm going to give each of you a chance – say your name, what year you are, and what leg you swam on the relay, and what you split. We'll start at the end.

Max Grodecki: My name is Max Grodecki, I was the fourth leg, and I'm a senior.

Peter Busch: And what did you split Max?

Max Grodecki: 44.04.

Peter Busch: All right.

Reed Malone: I'm Reed Malone, I'm a junior, I was the second leg and I went 44.76.

Jack Mangan: I'm Jack Mangan, and I'm a junior, and I was the third leg and I split a 44.7-something.

Sam Skinner: Yes, I'm Sam Skinner, I was the lead off leg, I'm a senior, and I went 46.04.

Peter Busch: So Sam did you ask to lead off because you're the senior or did you get the best flat start?

Sam Skinner: I usually lead off most of the time during the season. I think it's kind of a habit of the coaches. I'd like to think I'm a better flat start than these guys but I don't know.

Peter Busch: Well guys you were, by our research, the second team ever to break three minutes in high school swimming in that relay. Was this the goal all year long?

Max Grodecki: We think so.

Sam Skinner: Yes, I think after the state meet last year we won the 400 free relay and I think that's when the goal really started, right, wouldn't you say? And throughout the whole year we were thinking about breaking three minutes to get the national record and doing that was pretty cool.

Peter Busch: Did any of you win individual state titles as well?

Max Grodecki: I won the 50 and 100 free.

Peter Busch: I heard there were some pretty darn fast times.

Max Grodecki: We were okay.

Peter Busch: 20.2?

Max Grodecki: Yes. 20.2 and 44.6

Peter Busch: Well you've probably been recruited very highly. Where are you going next year?

Max Grodecki: I plan to go to Madison, Wisconsin.

Peter Busch: Wisconsin, huh?

Max Grodecki: Yes.

Peter Busch: How about you Sam? Are you just going to swim next year?

Sam Skinner: Yes, I'm swimming at Duke next year.

Peter Busch: A week or so ago we had the girls from the Baylor School down in Tennessee on the show and they had broken a high school record as well. And they said they had definitely been talking about the Swimming World rankings. How about you guys? Is that something you were looking out for in what events you swam and motivation?

Reed Malone: Yes, we were looking to kind – in 2007 they won the Swimming World National Championship and we all thought it was pretty cool how they were on the cover of Swimming World so we kind of wanted to try to do that this year and we set our goals pretty high and we did our best to trying to get to get on the cover, I guess.

Peter Busch: Did everybody on the team shave their head or were there any holdouts?

Sam Skinner: Yes, from the States everyone shaved but holdouts on JV.

Peter Busch: Guys, tell us about what this year meant for you because I know it was a pretty special anniversary for the school as well at 100 years. We had a show a couple of months ago talking to your coach about that.

Jack Mangan: Yes, it was the 100th year so it was a really special year and we talked earlier about making this really good.

Peter Busch: There are a lot of big name swimmers who choose not to swim high school swimming because they want to train with their club team year round and maybe they don't have the benefit of swimming, being at a school where there's a great team but make a pitch for why you think all kids should swim for their high school teams if they're swimmers.

Reed Malone: I think that it's a lot different than USS because you'll get the atmosphere of the state meet or conference, the sectionals or even dual meets because everyone gets not to swim for yourself, you're swimming for the whole team, and you just get that different kind of feel for swimming I guess.

Sam Skinner: Yes, it sounds really clich? but the team atmosphere, like Reed said in high school season is much different than it is in club season I think in my opinion and high school season is much more about you giving your own personal best and high school season especially at New Trier is about winning championships as a team and that's what makes I think high school season so special.

Peter Busch: All right, did they throw a parade for you back in high school? What kind of perks come out of this?

Reed Malone: We got out of class for this interview pretty much. We win a lot of kind of weird sports and we're a pretty big school, so some people knew about it but not a lot. We don't get as many perks as you think we would get.

Sam Skinner: We got an announcement Monday morning, that was pretty cool.

Peter Busch: Come on, there's got to be a date for the prom thrown in the mix or something? Easier to approach that girl in class?

Sam Skinner: Cross your fingers.

Max Grodecki: Hopefully.

Peter Busch: Guys, congratulations on the amazing swims and good luck the rest of this year.

All: Thank you.

Peter Busch: All right, those are the guys from New Trier High School joining us today and that's it for today's show. I'm Peter Busch reminding you to keep your head down at the finish.

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