Swimmer elects to not compete with Uni High this season

URBANA — Sally Ma won’t be defending her 2019 News-Gazette All-Area girls’ swimming and diving Athlete of the Year award this school year.

It’s not because she’s graduated high school. Nor because she’s injured or leaving the pool for another sport.

The Uni High junior instead is forgoing her junior season with the Illineks. She’ll still be swimming, instead providing her efforts to the Champaign Heat club team that she typically swims for outside of the IHSA girls’ season.

“I’ve been thinking about this decision for a while — ever since COVID started,” Ma said, referencing the ongoing pandemic. “The decision was pretty hard to make, especially since I realized I want to be part of the team for my seniors and also the incoming freshmen who are joining a new team.

“I want to be a part of the Uni swim team, of course. But I realize this is the best decision for me at the moment.”

Spectators might question the move, considering the IHSA Board of Directors on July 29 announced girls’ swimming and diving athletes would have a season that can start Monday and run through Oct. 24.

But that timeline isn’t so simple for Ma.

First of all, Ma said she learned from Uni High’s interim director Dr. Elizabeth Majerus that the Illineks will not compete in any meets this fall.

Additionally, the IHSA girls’ swim and dive season this school year was initially scheduled to begin Monday and end Nov. 14, meaning nearly a month was chopped off in the revised 2020 fall calendar. Ma isn’t even sure whether there will be a state meet, like the one last year in which she placed second in the 50-yard freestyle and eighth in the 100 freestyle.

Ma also receives a good amount of pool time with the Heat at the local YMCA, something she said other teams, including the University of Illinois women’s program, are struggling to nail down.

She feels it will be easier to stick with her club squad straight through the remainder of 2020 versus making multiple adjustments in a short timeframe — from the Heat to the Illineks, then back to the Heat after the IHSA season concludes.

With all of that considered — not to mention the guidance Ma said she receives from Heat leader Will Barker and his staff — Ma knew what she had to do.

“I’m going to go right back to Uni swimming next year as a senior,” Ma said, “but junior year I feel bad because my senior friends on the team … I’m not going to be able to see them swim this year, and I’m not going to be able to say goodbye.”

One of those seniors might be Reed Broaders, the 2018 N-G All-Area girls’ swimming and diving Athlete of the Year. Ma said she isn’t sure what Broaders’ stance is on competing in the IHSA’s 2020 season.

Ma’s swimming practice time has been uneven since the pandemic’s national introduction in mid-March. She said she took a month off from swimming once the YMCA state and national meets were canceled in response to the pandemic, as it was too cold at that point to swim outdoors and indoor pools around the area were being shut down as a safety measure.

Once the weather warmed up, Ma began casually swimming in backyard pools before reintroducing herself to Heat activities about a month and a half ago.

And these aren’t like the heavy-duty workouts typically created for Uni High’s swimmers by coaches Hannah Newman and Dave Young. First came dry-land exercises, followed by a slow transition back into the water in the YMCA pool.

“It was two people in each lane, one on each side of the pool. We have eight lanes, so it was 16 people at each time,” Ma said. “The practices were pretty short, around 45 to 50 minutes. It was super easing us into the water, because most of us hadn’t swam in months.”

That was followed by allowing up to 24 people into the pool at a time, as well as extending practices to as long as an hour.

“Oh, man. Those first couple weeks were real rough,” Ma said with a laugh. “Swimming is one of those sports where if you’re out of the pool for even one week you’re like, ‘Woah, how do I even swim? I don’t remember.’ … It’s been hard for us to get endurance back up like it was this same time last year, but we’re getting there.”

Ma said it also will be tough to move back to a schedule she’d be more used to at Uni High after partaking in this current setup.

Right now, Ma doesn’t exactly have a huge meet to look forward to. She’s currently trying to get her conditioning back so she can start to knock down her times. That’s a big reason Ma is opting to stick with the Heat, as that aforementioned pool time affords her more present-day chances to impress college coaches.

Even so, Ma recognizes she won’t have nearly as many of those opportunities as she did while a Uni High freshman and sophomore.

“It’s been really affecting a lot of people, including me,” Ma said. “Those big meets are really vital in getting coaches to notice you. I’m glad that a lot of college coaches are aware of this. And so I think it’s going to be really important whenever we do have those meets again … for us to swim really fast at those couple of meets.”

Knowing none of them will feature her representing the Illineks, though, does put a damper on Ma’s spirits.

“Not having that emotional support during that time of the year, whenever school is starting back up … is going to be really big,” Ma said. “I feel like I’m abandoning my team.”