The Glen Rock Swim Club ‘s strides to create a new school organization foundered before the starting date of Nov. 13 due to the lack of participants.

Although the swim club was a great way to get students in the pool, students on club swimming programs were already spending numerous hours with their teams every week.

Eric Tymoshenko, a senior at Glen Rock, swims competitively on Scarlet Aquatics’ New Jersey Wave. He believes that the swim club was a good idea, but there was no point for it because most of the students who are interested in swimming are on a club team.

“My team practices six days a week already, and there was no point for me to pay extra and not participate in swim on an interscholastic varsity level,” said Tymoshenko.

Would-have-been coach Kathy Schwartz, a Boston University women’s swim alumna, attempted to bring her talent and dedication to Glen Rock High School swimmers. Schwartz has been swimming since she was nine years old. Two of her children are on the Ridgewood YMCA Breakers, the same team Schwartz had been on when she was a kid. When Schwartz was in high school, her school lacked a swim program as well, and she felt left out when it came to school athletics. Her goal was to give students an opportunity that wasn’t given to her.

“If this was a school sport, then I would definitely participate in it. I would want to participate in a sport I’ve been doing all my life on a varsity level,” said Tymoshenko.

Kathy Schwartz and Christina Peck, one of the women in charge of getting the team up and going, were excited to put it all together. Considering that it was a school club and not a team, they agreed to have a few intersquad meets and a time trial against a few other towns. Since pool time is limited, practices were to be held at the YMCA from 8:30 to 10 p.m. The pool that was intended to be used was 87 degrees because this was the only pool left available.

Similar to Schwartz, Zoe Chan, a senior at Glen Rock has been swimming on the Ridgewood YMCA breakers since she was seven. She did not join the Swim club because it was not a high school team which meant they would not be competing against other high schools. Although the swimmers would be swimming against each other as time trials, Chan felt that she did enough of this at her own practices.

“I want Glen Rock High School to have a swim team because club swimmers at Glen Rock are missing out on a high school sport experience. Although there may be other sports to join, it is very difficult to balance two different sports simultaneously, especially when swimming is a year round sport,” said Chan.

A car ride away, Ridgewood High School is excelling in its varsity swimming program. Ridgewood swimmers have evidently fell in love with the varsity sport, and all of the hard work and dedication is what makes the sport fun for these student athletes.

Sami Mulkay, a senior at Ridgewood High School, joined the Ridgewood varsity swim team her sophomore year, and she never looked back.

“The team is like one big happy family and we all push each other to be our best in in every practice and you can really feel the team spirit and the love that everyone has for each other,” said Mulkay.