‘Age-grouper’ grows up

The roar rippled through cavernous Eppley Recreation Center Natatorium like smooth stones skipping across a lake. The salvo greeted Terrapin swimmer Ginny Glover no more than a moment after she touched the wall following her best event, the 200 back.

It was Nov. 20, 2010, the final day of the 2010 Terrapin Cup, when Glover posted a time of 1:56.02 in the 200 back, registering a NCAA ‘B' cut time in the process. Despite falling three-hundredths of a second shy of tying her school record, a throng of Terp supporters rose and delivered an ovation for her efforts.

Evident to all in attendance was how far the junior — once an unschooled freshman who did not know how to properly warm up before a meet — had come.

In the swimming community, an "age-grouper" describes a young swimmer who knows little about the sport or its intricacies, not to mention the training regimen necessary for success.

Glover, as she will readily admit, fell into that category when she first came to College Park, a truth assistant coach John Pontz repeated before the second day of the team's quad meet Jan. 15.

"He totally called me out and said I was an age-grouper freshman year," Glover said. "But looking back, I was. I was so naive. I didn't know anything about lifting or dry land or doing power circuits in the water with power equipment to work on strength."

Most collegiate swimmers arrive at a university having competed on a high-school team or a competitive club team beforehand. Glover had neither luxury, as her high school, Wilde Lake in Columbia, did not have a swim team.

Rather, she built her swimming repertoire by training at the Catonsville YMCA four or five times a week.

"It was huge," Glover said of the transition. "I was exhausted all freshman year. I just remember being tired all the time. At least the first semester, whenever I could, I'd just take a 10-minute nap, just conk out between classes."

"Everything was just new to me. Swimming the amount of yards, swimming twice a day, swimming on Saturdays, swim meets where people are really fast. In the YMCA world, you swim these fast kids maybe once or twice a year and then in college everyone's that fast. Everyone can beat you."

As a recruit under then-interim coach Jarod Schroeder and his staff, Glover didn't have a problem with committing to College Park despite the inherent lack of stability that accompanied Schroeder's interim title.

"I really liked their coaching staff, and I really liked their team atmosphere with the girl's team," Glover said. "I knew, going into college swimming, he was the interim coach, and I know just with any college sport, you pick the school, not the coach, because coaches leave."

Today, the 6-foot-2 communications major has a far loftier goal than she likely anticipated three years ago: qualifying for the 2012 Olympic trials next June.

"The plan is I'm staying here this summer to train and go to meets and train with [coach] Sean [Schimmel] and John Pontz and the other coaches so I can try to make a trials cut," she said. "That's the goal."

Glover, an optimistic realist, acknowledges the odds of her landing a spot on the U.S. Olympic swim team are "very slim."

"I just want to go to the meet and experience being surrounded by Olympians and future Olympians and former Olympians and just be in the atmosphere to say I did it and made it," she said.

Considering how far the former age-grouper has come, it's near impossible to say just how far Glover can go.

castello@umdbk.com