Karen Waters. Former Division I swimmer. Current swim coach. State record holder. Came within a few seconds of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic swim team in 1984 as a 15-year-old. There’s surely a joke in there somewhere, that a person named Waters has spent almost all of her life in or around a swimming pool. She wasn’t a Waters back then, but still – it’s just low hanging fruit.
Waters deserves more respect than that. For years, she was one of the best swimmers in the country. These days, she is passing on her knowledge to the young athletes in Columbus High’s swimming program. In the process, she is teaching them about hard work, achieving goals and instilling in them a lifelong love of a sport that will stay with them no matter what they do or where they go.
Waters graduated from Columbus High in 1986. She was the sole member of Columbus High’s first swim team in 1984, the same year she came just a couple of places shy of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic swim team. Waters set several state records during her high school years and went on to swim for three years at the University of Georgia on scholarship. She had to retire from swimming after her junior year because of injury. After Waters’s days of competitive swimming were over, she began coaching, including 10 years teaching and coaching at Woodward Academy. Waters eventually moved back to Columbus, where she taught at Columbus State University and coached in various summer swim leagues. Four years ago, she returned to Columbus High. A year later, she became the coach of the program she started back in 1986.
To be truly competitive, a swim team must be comprised of swimmers who are in the pool year round. Swimming is considered a minor sport by many, but there is nothing minor about it. Serious swimmers are in the pool every day, twice a day most weeks, for a minimum of 15 hours per week – 20 or more for elites. Most high school programs, particularly those outside the metro Atlanta area, don’t have many year round swimmers. That means those programs can be competitive at the region level but not necessarily at the state level, which is dominated by those schools from the Atlanta area.
“I have about 50 swimmers here: 25 men and 25 women. Out of those, maybe five are year rounders. We don’t have our own pool. We practice 90 minutes per day and we have to work around other groups that want to use the pool. We usually send a few swimmers to the state meet. Last year, we had one swimmer almost make the finals. But it’s hard to compete with the schools that have a lot of kids who swim throughout the year,” Waters says.
The experience level among Blue Devils swimmers is quite varied. Some can compete at the state level. Others come into the program with little to no competitive experience. They don’t know how the sport is organized and they haven’t mastered the stroke techniques. All the fitness in the world doesn’t matter if a swimmer doesn’t understand stroke technique. Likewise, a keen understanding of technique can hide a lack of fitness. Either way, Waters and her assistant, Mark D’Antonio – himself a former Division I swimmer at Tulane – have their work cut out for them.
“Stroke work comes first. Fitness comes later. Having Mark around gives us the opportunity to do a lot of stroke work,” she says.
Swimming has provided Waters with a lifetime’s worth of opportunities. The sport paid for her education, allowed her to establish a career, and has helped her pass on a love of education and sport to thousands of young adults. Through their involvement in her program, she hopes that her swimmers will have the same opportunities. They all might not continue swimming but the lessons that they learn in the pool will translate into other areas of life. And perhaps a few might keep swimming through adulthood.
“It’s a great sport. It got me in great shape and gave me a lot of confidence. It paid for my school and did so much for me. It’s a sport that you can do throughout your life. I hope that our swimmers will develop a lifelong love for the sport,” Waters says.
Karen Waters and Jamie, her husband of 20 years, have three daughters: 16-year-old twins Ashley and Hillary, and 14-year-old daughter Morgan. All three are athletic but none swim. The twins – one plays softball and one plays soccer – should have an opportunity to play their respective sports in college. “They are into team sports. I didn’t push them into swimming. I admire what they’ve done and how well they play. I know I couldn’t have played softball or soccer. They’ve done very well in the sports they’ve chosen, and I’m very proud of them,” Waters says.
Coach’s Corner/Columbus Valley/December 2013
Karen Waters
Columbus High School
Columbus, Georgia
Robert Preston Jr.
Former Division I swimmer leads Columbus High’s program
