From Bob Kravitz' article in the Indy Star:
Today, though, the country's most overwhelming sports dynasty -- in high school, college or the pros -- belongs to the Carmel High School girls swimming and diving team.
With Saturday's dominant, record-setting performance, the Greyhounds won their 23rd straight state championship -- yes, 23rd -- establishing themselves as the longest-standing active sports dynasty in the United States.
Twenty-three.
Consider this: The seniors on the 1987 team who began this run are now . . . 40 years old. Just don't ask them for an ID.
And you thought this was a basketball state.
He goes on to say a lot more, explain the USA Carmel Swim Club "feeder system" for the high school, and various other fun facts.
It is always difficult for those who know us to understand the difference between the Carmel High School Swim Team (CHS) and the Carmel Swim Club Team (CSC). They practice in the same pool at the Carmel High School and are made up of mostly the same swimmers.
The high school team is made up of swimmers at Carmel High School, most of who are also members of the year-round USA Carmel Swim Club team.
The Carmel Swim Club team is made up of swimmers from about age 6 through high school, and then some of the college kids who swam with the team in those years also come home in the summers and swim with the Carmel Swim Club.
It gets confusing at the high school level because the majority of the Carmel Swim Club members go to Carmel High School for their high school careers, they swim for Carmel High School during the high school swim season (October through February). There are Carmel Swim Team members who do not go to Carmel High School, but go to private high schools...Matt, Ali, and Harrison, for example. Then there are some like Daniel and Stevie who don't swim for their private high schools, but just swim club year round. It gets confusing!
So, while Matt swims for the Carmel Swim Club (for the past 10 years), he does not swim for the Carmel High School team as he goes to Guerin Catholic High School. So, for the high school season, they are all still members of the Carmel Swim Club, but the high school swimmers also have different teams they swim on for high school sports. Make sense now?
All that said, the Carmel High School swimmers are fantastic to Matt...they include him in as much as possible and last year, Matt the lone Golden Eagle, was invited to sit with them on their bench at sectionals and state, which meant a lot to him that all his friends would support him even though he did not choose to go to CHS for high school. Believe me, it could easily have gone the opposite, but the CHS swimmers and coaches are a class act in things like that, no ill feelings whatsoever on the choice. It's a great group, both the CHS swimmers and the CSC swim family.
I will try to get photos posted with this later, but I am off and running today to Bloomington...hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day! NUMBER 23...WOW, CHS...WOW!
Oh, and also, the 200 Medley Relay team that broke the national record on Friday night, came back yesterday for the finals round and swam even faster, by about a half a second, I believe, to break their own record and now have even a faster time! It's been quite a weekend!