At 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 8, the men and women’s Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) swim and dive teams stood on the edge of Haldeman Pool’s deck ready to dive into their new season — literally.
Each year, the P-P swim and dive athletes take part in an inaugural 50-yard swim at midnight on the first day of NCAA-approved practices.
The tradition begins at 11:30 p.m. when the teams arrive on the pool deck. In anticipation of their kickoff event, the group takes a moment to consider the season ahead of them.
“To start the night, we gather as a whole team in a circle,” captain Olivia Klipfel PZ ‘25 said. “Our coach says ‘Look to your left, look to your right. This is the team, enjoy this year.’”
This moment is followed by a series of speeches from the teams’ senior athletes. According to Klipfel, these speeches consist of advice from the upperclassmen about what they wish they had known in previous years on the team.
As a senior and a captain, Klipfel said she hoped to instill excitement for the year in her teammates at this event.
“The number one thing is [the athletes] have to go into it and just commit to the silliness and the goofiness of the whole year,” Klipfel said. “We are very close-knit and like a family, and I think that a part of that is that we buy into traditions like these and open ourselves up.”
Kai Parker PO ‘27 and Charlotte Dixon PO ‘28, two underclassmen on the team, took this advice to heart, both noting how impactful this experience has been for them. For Dixon, a first-year, part of this impact was finding common ground with the senior athletes.
“I was kind of scared of [the seniors] at first because they’re so much older than me, and they’re so much faster and so much wiser,” Dixon said. “But pretty much everyone started their speech with ‘I remember sitting in this circle four years ago and I was so nervous.’ As a first year, understanding that everyone has been in my place was pretty special.”
As a sophomore, Parker got to experience this tradition for the second time. This year, however, the swim was special in a new way.
“It was cool to experience it from a position of already having been through the experience and already having one season,” Parker said. “It gives you a new perspective, and I was able to understand and relate to what the seniors were saying more than I was able to last year.”
After the seniors finish their speeches, the Sagehens don their caps and goggles and line up at the edge of the pool to begin the countdown.
“We count down from 10 to the very start of the season, then we’ll dive in as a group,” Dixon said. “The swimmers will swim [50 meters], and then the divers will just do a dive off the boards.”
Following their inaugural swim or dive, the Hens pull themselves out of the water, brush off their feathers, and head back to their nests to get some sleep in preparation for the season ahead.
After beginning practice this week, the Sagehens will begin competition on Friday, Oct. 25 at Cal Baptist and host their first meet on Saturday, Oct. 26 against Concordia.
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