June 9, 2010
Senior Perspective: Women's Swimming's Alexandra Clarke
Senior captains and representatives of varsity teams at
Harvard contributed viewpoints based on personal experience from
both their senior seasons and full varsity careers at Harvard. Each
year the Senior Perspectives are compiled into a book and handed
out at the Senior Letterwinner’s Dinner.
Senior Perspectives thus forms a valuable portion of each
team’s legacy to sport at Harvard and to the permanent record
built here by our varsity athletes. Throughout the summer, these
senior essays will be posted to GoCrimson.com for all to see.
My favorite memory of my time on Harvard
women’s swimming and diving comes far away from Blodgett
Pool: two girls doing an interpretive dance to R. Kelly’s
“I believe I Can Fly,” as fellow hotel guests watch
from their balconies. In fact, this dance was just one of many
talents presented by my teammates at the First Annual HWSD Talent
Show over winter training trip in Barbados this year. The talents
ranged from the absurd to the hilarious to the downright
impressive, and each presentation was a demonstration of the
individuality of our team members. I think this will always be one
of the defining moments from my experience in Harvard Athletics,
for it never ceased to amaze me how more than thirty fiercely
independent women could band together and unite as a team.
My junior season 2009 ended in jubilation as our entire team,
including coaches, jumped in the Nassau County Aquatic Center
Pool after our team clinched the Ivy League championship title. We
only graduated two seniors from that team and we brought in an
extremely talented class of freshmen last fall, so I found myself
in a state of shock as the last day of competition, my last Ivy
Championships, came to a close and we found ourselves in second
place. My coach, Steph Morawski, and I went into her office during
the diving break to add up all the possible outcomes of the last
two events; it became depressingly clear that it was mathematically
impossible for us to defend our title.
People often talk about the individuality of the sport of
swimming, but this defining moment in my coach’s office once
again proved the crucial team aspect of Harvard women’s
swimming and diving. While I was happy with my performance at the
meet, and I knew I would have the opportunity to swim again three
weeks later at the NCAA Championships, experiencing our team defeat
was a crushing blow. (Final score: Princeton: 1,465 Harvard:
1,438.) We had worked tirelessly since last spring to prepare for
the annual
Clash of the Titans with rival Princeton, and
to fall short of the title by less than thirty points was
devastating, both as a competitor and as team co-captain.
It is rare for one to be able to say they have worked at
something for their entire life, but I can honestly say that
swimming has been a constant in mine for as long as I can remember.
I competed in my first meet – a 25-yard freestyle –
when I was just three years old. At nine, I joined a club team and
began the all-consuming journey of competitive swimming. My
relationship with the sport has changed over my lifetime. When I
was six, I used to beg my mom to let me go swimming during the
winter because I missed the feel of the water on my skin. When I
was eleven, I cried because I wanted to trade in my goggles and
kickboard for horseback riding lessons with my friends. Two weeks
after turning eighteen, I came to Harvard and became a proud member
of Harvard women’s swimming and diving team and embarked on
the greatest athletic experience of my life. I found a group of
thirty-five talented young women who understood the brutality of
morning practices and the profound reward of a “personal best
time.” Most importantly, I developed an everlasting
bond with coach Steph Morawski. She is the quintessential college
coach who, on a daily basis for the past four years, inspired me,
trained me, and carved a specific path for my success.
I was fortunate to be part of very successful school and club
teams throughout high school; however, it wasn’t until I came
to Harvard, where we all wore the same suit at every practice and
talked about what line-up of events would give us the best shot of
winning as a team, that I truly understood what it meant to rely on
your teammates for success. As a former Harvard record-setting
breaststroker, Coach Morawski inspires us each day to be proud of
who we are and what we can achieve together. Harvard women’s
swimming and diving is special in that we can train our hardest
every day to beat each other in practice, but come meet time we are
a united force, and it does not matter who wins as long as the
first swimmer at the touch pad is wearing a Harvard
cap.
As an Arizona native, I certainly did not choose Harvard for
the weather, or because it was close to home. Rather, I wanted to
be a part of a successful Division 1 program, but I also valued my
education and wanted to attend a school that would allow me to
balance my academics and athletics. During recruiting, it was clear
from my discussions with Steph, and the HWSD team members, that
Harvard offers its athletes a unique opportunity to succeed in
their sport while living a well-rounded life as a college student.
Juggling eight practices per week, studying, and attending class
has been challenging, but the support I have received on both sides
of the river over the past four years has been invaluable to my
success as a Harvard student-athlete.
I have accomplished all of my swim goals, and now that my
career has come to an end, I am looking forward to a new set of
challenges that I will face out of the pool. Though I am not sure I
will ever revert back to that little six-year-old telling her mom
how much she misses the feel of the water on her skin, I do know
that I will miss the competition and friendship of my teammates and
coaches, and I will always be proud to have been a Harvard athlete.
