By Mylee Dubin
Like many freshmen, Decker Stedman has been waiting ages to get to the upper school. She’s also been anxious to make a name for herself on the Lovett swim team and spent her entire summer training with her club team in preparation for this year.
When I found Decker Stedman after her swim practice at Dynamo Swim Club, I said she looked “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as per usual,” to which she responded with a giggle.
After 7 years at Lovett (and taking 2 off), Decker is excited to finally begin high school. “It’s different, but it’s fun,” she said.
I asked her what she did this summer. Could it have been traveling the world? Going on adventures with friends? No, Decker had a different schedule than most.
“My summer was spent waking up at 5:50 every morning to get in a freezing cold pool,” she said with a wide smile. “While it felt good to get a workout in, it was pretty hard to wake up.” Still, she said that even though it was summer, “After a few weeks I got the hang of it.”
Since this was an almost daily routine all summer, I wondered if she missed out on doing other activities. Fortunately for her, one of the advantages of waking up at the crack of dawn is that she has “the ability to do other things,” she said. “But I tried soccer and I hated running. So we’re sticking with swimming.” It’s okay, Decker. I too hate running, especially in the summer.
Swimming simply comes naturally to Decker, and after a short break after the summer season, she is happy to be getting back in the swing of things.
Currently, her practices are “pretty short,” which she added is why she “love[s] preseason.”
I asked what she is looking forward to for high school, expecting an answer about academics, but how silly of me to think the stellar swimmer wouldn’t respond in regards to swimming! “The seniors this year are really fast and I’m really excited to race them and be on relays with them,” she said. Decker also added that she is excited for all of the people in high school – not just on the swim team.
In terms of her club season, Decker is looking forward to working towards some of her personal goals for the season. Since high school swimming does not begin until October and ends in February, all of the other months of the year are devoted to training at Dynamo and getting faster there.
Decker specified that some of her main goals for Dynamo were to “Focus on my underwaters and technique,” and achieve qualifying times for specific meets. “I want to start getting closer to Junior National Times or winter times,” she said.
Though Decker is working towards a Junior National cut, she achieved some pretty impressive times this summer by qualifying for the Futures meet. “Futures is a pretty fast time where if you qualify, you get to go to a specific meet,” she explained. “It was really fun. It didn’t really matter how you do. Of course, you wanted to do good, but the people there, the energy was electric and I did pretty good.” Decker also added that in one of her relays she placed sixth, which earned her “a massive medal.” For those that still aren’t following, sixth place at that meet is pretty incredible.
Of course, I had to ask Decker if she had any fears about starting high school. “I’m just scared that I won’t be able to hold up to my expectations of myself,” she said. “But I have to continue to get good grades and put in as much effort every day into practice.”
When she said this, I asked if it’s a challenge to live up to these expectations. “Oh yeah,” she said with a wide-eyed expression. “I hold myself to a really high standard.”
