Positivity energizes swimmers

Cheers bring forth best-effort, stress-relief, sportsmanship

Junior+Nicole+Sanford+practices+intervals+with+the+rest+of+the+girls+swim+team+on+Sept.+19.

Mira Swartz

Junior Nicole Sanford practices intervals with the rest of the girls’ swim team on Sept. 19.

Isaac Wert

Senior Katie Orton walks into each swim meet excited to hype-up and invigorate her teammates to compete.

Orton, cheer creator and a captain of the girls’ swimming team, said she loves doing cheers before meets.

“We have a really young team, and they’re easily swayed by positive and negative energy. A lot of our cheers are silly and fun and are hard to do without laughing,” Orton said. “You can see the difference it makes swimming in the water after doing the cheer.”

Freshman Franny Bevell said she likes doing the cheers and feels they get the team pumped up to compete.

“We have a lot of cheers, but the one we do the most is super swimmers,” Bevell said.

According to Orton, super swimmers is a cheer in which each letter of the word is assigned an adjective. For example, S is for Super, U is for Unique, and so on. The cheer ends with a collective yell.

“(Super swimmers) is really funny and it get’s everyone excited,” Orton said.

Other cheers before meets include caw-caw, a cheer that incorporates mentions of Orioles, Park’s mascot, into its words, Orton said.

In addition to cheers before meets, Orton said the team ends each meet with a supportive cheer for their opponents.

“We always do a cheer after the meet to congratulate the other team (. . .)  just to say thanks for letting us use your pool or thanks for swimming at our pool,” Orton said.

The next meet takes place at 6 p.m. Sept. 29 at home against Richfield.