Washington Water Sharks reflect on final season at old pool

WASHINGTON — As construction continues on a state-of-the art new indoor pool facility at the Washington YMCA, members of the organization’s local swim team, the Washington Water Sharks, say they feel a mix of excitement and bittersweet nostalgia about leaving the nearly 100-year-old facility used by the last several generations of swimmers.

At just two lanes wide, and five yards shorter than regulation-length competition pools, the Y’s swimmers have to adjust everything they’ve practiced at every meet they attend, according to Water Sharks Coach Samantha Van Houten.

“They have decent endurance, but you can tell where our pool stops, when they are swimming at a meet,” she said. “They will slow down, and think they’re coming to the wall, and they still have five yards to go … It’s hard to watch them, because no matter how much practice we have, doing a turn at 20 yards is so much different from swimming an extra five yards for them.”

The Water Sharks team was first chartered in 1955, according to Van Houten. Despite the competitive disadvantages of a short pool and aging equipment, it’s thrived over the years, and currently has around 60 kids on the roster, ages 6-18.

“It’s a great program, we keep kids in it for a long time,” she said. “Once they start when they’re little, most of the time we keep them until they graduate.”

Katherine Flannery, a high school junior, has swam on the team since she was five years old. With a construction timeline that ends this fall, she’ll get to spend her last season as a Water Shark swimming in the new pool.

“I am extremely excited,” she said. “I’m willing to get in there and help build it myself.”

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Flannery said the occasional breakdowns of equipment and subsequent closures of the current pool could be maddening in the days and sometimes weeks leading up to a swim meet. With no other indoor pools in the county, a closure means the Water Sharks don’t hold practice.

The swimming lanes have been closed since Jan. 2 this year, first because of an equipment failure, then because of damage from burst pipes that broke the entire building’s heat and water supply.

“Cancels of practices are always last-minute because we always hope it will be open and ready,” Flannery said. “The (most recent) meet went pretty good, everybody had the mindset of, ‘We’re going to take this easy, there’s no expectations,’ but it’s been really frustrating to work with this pool.”

Still, Water Sharks said they had plenty of love in their hearts for the old aquatic facility, where generations of people have played, raced, exercised and learned to swim. The approaching change of pools represents the end of an era for Washington.

But for most, the eagerness about a new pool wins out.

“It’s a little bittersweet just because we’ve been in that pool for so long and have kind of gotten used to all of its quirks,” said Claire Wubbena, who has swam there for roughly a decade. “But it’s also really exciting to have a new pool to swim in, with nicer equipment and blocks and timers and stuff like that.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com