Boys swimmers at St. Thomas More fought for their chance back into the pool
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — When Blake Bermhingham, a sophomore at The High School of St. Thomas More (STM,) emailed swim coach Angie Deptula in October of 2021, he didn’t realize his request to restart the STM boys’ swim team was kind of a tradition.
“I have been the girls’ swim coach since 2017,” Angie says. “During the fall of 2019, a senior came to me wanting to create the boys’ team again. There wasn’t enough interest that year, so it didn’t happen.”
From 2012 to 2013 and again from 2014 to 2015, former coach Jack Clifford coached an incredibly successful boys’ swim team at STM. Four of his swimmers set school records, including five that still stand today. Even back then, the students took the initiative to get the team going.
“[S]ome students came to him asking him to coach so kids could have a [boys’] team,” Angie says.
Despite the success of that team, eventually it disbanded.
Angie did what she could to drum up attention for the swim teams, both boys and girls, on social media but interested dialed up and down. When the student request came in 2019 and not many others seemed interested, Angie thought that was the end of it.
Then the pandemic started and kept students home; when they returned to school, enthusiasm ramped up for everything at STM.
“There seemed to be more school spirit,” Angie says. “Students were joining activities and sports again. The school atmosphere was really good.”
Soon after the start of this school year, she got the email from Blake and met with the school’s athletic director, Jon Marston. He approved the budget for the sport the same day. Angie held a meeting soon after for anyone interested in joining the team.
“By the time we began practicing on November 22, I had eight swimmers,” she says. “Of those eight, five were new to the sport.”
Regardless of how long they’ve spent in the pool, the new boys’ team is out of the blocks at a promising pace.
“As a team, we’ve had success in seeing time drops at every meet, [broken] a few school records, and [won] a few events,” Angie says. “We may be too small and new to win a meet, but we are earning points.”
The team wrapped up its promising season at the end of February with Angie, assistant coach Jennifer McCoy and a special team manager—Angie’s daughter and STM senior, Abby—cheering them on.
Angie says Jennifer and Abby both made immeasurable contributions to the team.
“[Abby]…is essential to our success,” Angie says, adding that because Abby is a swimmer herself she knew how to keep practices moving at a good clip.
As the assistant coach, Jennifer ran practices when Angie, who also coaches STM’s cheerleaders, had a conflict. Jennifer is also a chemistry teacher at STM. That gave her more insight into the team, making her instrumental.
“She gets to interact with the boys both in school and the pool,” Angie says. “Often she will share with me if the boys have had a good day or if something bothered them. We really [have enjoyed] our first season with the team.”
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