Just this school year, Edmond Public Schools created the first middle school swim team in all of Oklahoma. The three swim teams have a goal of having teens interested in swim to hopefully make for better, faster and more competitive high school swim teams. The teams are classified as Junior Varsity (JV) swim teams of the high school that each middle school feeds into and their names are the high school mascot.

Head Coach Heather Devoe put her idea for swim in middle school to action this year. 

“Planning middle school swimming has been fun and challenging. I’ve been talking about it with my high school site coaches and we have had to put changes into the high school program to make the middle school program a possibility,” Devoe said.

 Although this plan has been in the works for almost three years, Devoe has successfully made it into a reality. 

Encouraging middle school swimmers to continue high school swim plays a huge part in the ambition of head JV Bulldogs coach, Tyler Kent.

 “My first goal has been to make it fun so they want to continue swimming in high school, as well as helping them as much as I can so they feel ready to continue swimming,” Kent said. 

This program allows swimmers to see the true fun and thrill that comes with participating on a swim team. It’s all part of a bigger plan.

 “Truthfully, wanting to win state titles at the high school level has helped bring this program to fruition. The more swimmers who see how exciting and fun the high school experience is, the better our chance of growing the team sizes. Numbers and talent win State titles,” Devoe said. 

As far as the students in the program, Braden Nieves, a swimmer for the JV Bulldogs team, has been swimming for seven years now, and he finds his teammates are learning valuable skills that will push them to flourish in high school swim. 

“All of the other kids have learned intervals, times, records, strokes and a lot more,” Nieves said.

 Another swimmer for the JV Bulldogs, Josie Mower, believes that swim has not only allowed her to advance her skills, but also form friendships with other swimmers at her school. 

“My favorite part about swimming is making new friendships. Swimming is fun, but it is better with friends,” Mower said. 

These teams have allowed students to participate in a sport that otherwise they might not have been interested in. Offering middle school students an opportunity to participate in swim has become beneficial to both middle school and high school students by creating better teams. Because the middle school teams have only competed against each other, it leaves a broad range of growth and more competitive meets for the students when they advance to high school. 

For more information contact Grace Swisher at [email protected]