Streaming and dreaming through the water at LLU Drayson Center are 20 athletes from the Redlands Swim Team who practice there four days a week, training in pursuit of winning international competitions. One, an Uzbekistani woman, already made it to the 2012 Olympic Games. The coach says these kinds of achievements would be impossible without the Drayson Center.
“I was looking for a place where there was potential for growth,” says coach Martin Gregoire, who hails from Quebec. “Seeing the Drayson Center was a revelation. This site is absolutely spectacular.”
The team has been training at Drayson Center for about a year, and the arrangement benefits both the competitive swimmers and regular members of the Drayson Center fitness facility, according to aquatics director Michael Rister.
“Seeing them train is extremely inspiring,” he says, “especially for the kids in our learn-to-swim program. They watch these competitive hopefuls swim and really get excited about what they might be able to do one day as well.”
Eighteen-year-old team member Yulduz Kuchkarova competed last summer during the London Olympics, where she qualified to race in the 200-meter backstroke representing her native Uzbekistan. She says she would love to return for the 2016 Games in even better condition to speed through the water.
“It was a really good experience, but I wasn’t as prepared as I would like to be for the next time because I was unsure whether I would get there,” she reflects. “I now know that I need to practice with the knowledge that it can happen—to train and wait for everything good.”
Whether that includes the Olympics or not, Ms. Kuchkarova aims to place among the top three swimmers at the Asian Games—the biggest multisport competition after the Olympics. It will next be held in Incheon, South Korea, in 2014.
Also training with Ms. Kuchkarova on the Redlands Swim Team are three additional swimmers from Uzbekistan. Two swimmers from the Ukraine have recently joined, according to Coach Gregoire, who recruited them.
“The international aspect is something that I really cherish,” he says. “The reason I came to coach here is because Southern California is the mecca of competitive swimming. What I did not realize is that most of this happens on the coast.
“But there’s no reason why we cannot duplicate that here,” he continues. “I think the Drayson Center could easily become a world-class international training center.”
That would require an Olympic-sized pool of 50 meters—which Mr. Rister and Don Sease, MBA, Drayson Center director, also dream of for the sake of all members who swim.
“The Drayson Center has grown by leaps and bounds,” Mr. Sease says. “Over the last two and a half years, use of the pool has grown enormously from our kids programs, to private swim lessons, to school groups.
“Our seniors love to swim because it helps with arthritis pain,” he continues. “We also have more and more students who are swimmers. We have reached the max to what the pool can handle.”
To address this, Mr. Sease is first looking for the resources to heat a second pool that is unusable in the winter—a nearly 200,000-gallon financial and engineering challenge. But in time, a new 50-meter temperature-controlled pool is the goal.
“It’s becoming a need, not a want,” says Mr. Sease. “We look forward to the continual development of the aquatics programs that we offer here. It benefits not only Loma Linda students and employees but their families, who are the biggest users during the summer time.”
And it also benefits the Redlands Swim Team. Being part of those swimmers’ dreams feels great, according to aquatics director Michael Rister. “It’s nice to get the Drayson Center name out there and help people meet their all-time goals, knowing we’re part of that success,” he says.
Members of the team hope that includes winning big. Coach Gregoire says several of the local swimmers stand alongside some of the top Olympic hopes in the United States. As far as what it takes to get there, he notes many factors are at play.
“Consistent good work is one of them, and access to a great facility is another,” he sums up.
Olympics aside, Coach Gregoire thinks everyone should get in the pool.
“My goal as a swim coach,” he says, “is getting all the kids in the community involved in swimming—at first for the safety of it, then for the pleasure of it, and then potentially for all the benefits that competitive swimming can bring.”
