Celestin Continues Record Breaking Season

First-Year Nick Celestin continues his record setting season, He established new marks of 51.90 and 1:55.39 in the 100 and 200 butterfly at the quad meet at Bowdoin College. This marks the third time this season that Celestin has lowered the record in the 200 fly, and the second time he has dropped the mark in the 100 fly. These records add to his record times in the 100 IM (54.72), the 50 back (25.04) and the 100 back (53.33). We're excited to see what he'll do once he's fully tapered and shaved, congrats Nick!

Senior Women Achieve 3.941 Avg. GPA

Bantam Senior Women 2012-13 Pompano Beach, FL
From Left to Right: Daisy Letendre, Emily Jensen, Shelby Friel, Carleigh Haron

This season the Bantams have four senior women: Shelby Friel, Carleigh Haron, Emily Jensen, and Daisy Letendre. These are not your average swimmers or college athletes. These women compete at the highest level within their team and within the NESCAC. They also achieve at the highest level in the classroom among all students at Trinity.

During her four year career Shelby Friel has established team records in the 50 and 100 fly, the 50 back and the 200 free. She has also been a key member to the Trinity relays. She has contributed to the 400 and 800 free relay records, and the 200 and 400 medley relay records. This season Shelby has put in an incredible amount of dedication in training and is sure to have an amazing NESCAC championship meet.

Co-Captain Carleigh Haron is off to another incredible season. Over the last four years she has become a key member of the Trinity relays. She is the only swimmer to be a part of the 200, 400, and 800 freestyle relay records. Her ability to contribute in relay events ranging from the 50 to 200 freestyle highlights her versatility as a sprint and mid-distance freestyler. She currently ranks among the top-10 in Trinity history in the 100 and 200 free, and the 50 and 100 fly. We can't wait to see what she does at NESCAC's!

Emily Jensen is off to another strong season and looks to cap off her career with an incredible NESCAC championship meet. The leader of Trinity's sprint group, she currently ranks third all time in both the 50 and 100 free and she was a member of the record setting 200 and 400 free relays, as well as the 400 medley relay. Jensen also ranks among Trinity's top-10 in the 50 breaststroke.

Co-Captain Daisy Letendre holds the third fastest time in school history in the 200 and 400 IM and ranks among the top-10 in team history in the 100 IM, and the 100 and 200 breaststroke. Letendre has been a leader in the IM and breaststroke groups the last two years and looks to finish her stellar career with a phenomenal NESCAC Championship meet.

All of these women are incredible athletes as indicated by their achievements in the pool over the last four years, but what is most impressive is that they are all equally impressive students. During the fall semester Shelby Friel, Carleigh Haron, Emily Jensen, and Daisy Letendre had a combined average GPA of 3.941. With their astounding performance in the classroom they helped lead the Trinity College women's swim team to their highest team GPA in school history at just above 3.5. The team's GPA for the fall semester would have ranked among the top-10 in the country last fall, and is sure to be right atop the standings once this year's GPA rankings are released. Congratulations Shelby, Carleigh, Emily and Daisy! Thank you for the impressive example you have set and for continuing the tradition of excellence here at Trinity!

Pompano Beach Training Trip

Trinity College Bantam Swimming & Diving 2012-13, Pompano Beach, Fl

Women's Team 2012-13 Pompano Beach, FL

Men's Team 2012-13 Pompano Beach, FL

Seniors 2012-13 Pompano Beach, FL

Every winter break the Bantam Swimming and Diving teams return to school early for their most intense training of the season. While their break is cut short, they do get to spend part of it somewhere warm. This year they headed south to Pompano Beach, Florida. The training trip is always a huge time for team building and bonding as a group. The trip is also a time for some really hard work and incredible training. This year the team spent nine days training long course meters twice a day. Each day the temperature ranged from 75-85 degrees, and the sun was shining all trip. It was perfect training trip weather. While there was down time each day at the beach, most of trip was spent working hard at the pool.

A typical day on training trip started with morning practice. The team would meet at the vans around 6:30am. The pool was a short five minute drive away from the hotel. The team would spend the next two and half hours getting intense and quality workouts in as the sun rose. After practice the team would enjoy the hotel breakfast together, before they'd head to the beach to catch some waves and some rays. After spending time as a team on the beach the team would head back to their rooms for a quick nap before practice number two. The vans would load up again at 4:30pm. The team would do dryland at the pool until 5:00pm and then spend the next two hours getting back to business in the pool. While on the trip the team continued some team training trip traditions. They went out for team ice cream sundae night, and had a team night out at the movies. They also continued the team dinner tradition as they had one large team dinner at a Pompano Beach favorite, J. Marks.

Both men's and women's team worked incredibly hard all trip. They will surely see their work pay off big time in the remaining dual meets, and especially at NESCAC Championships in February. Way to go Bantams!

Bantams Head To Florida For Winter Break Training

Before 2nd Practice of our trip

The swimmers are in Pompano Beach, FL for our winter break training.  Two sessions per day in the water and some dryland in between....they are certainly working hard!  Some fun activities sprinkled in makes a great recipe for a successful trip.  Everyone is enjoying some great weather (80 degrees during the day and 70 at night!) and having fun on the beach in between and after practices.  We are here until Jan. 10th and then head back to campus for an aggressive week of meets and some additional double sessions before classes start on Jan. 22nd.  We are very much looking forward to our upcoming meets and of course NESCAC Championships!

Bantams Mourn Passing of Long Time Coach Chet McPhee

Remembering Chet McPhee By: Lori Riley
December 19, 2012

Chet McPhee was a freshman football coach at Trinity. He was the college's swim coach for 15 years, coaching both the men's and the women's teams. He started the men's lacrosse program. He coached soccer.
"I think he did track for a while, too," said Rick Hazelton, who retired as Trinity athletic director after 28 years in 2010. "He was a special coach. He would do anything for me. He was my predecessor's right-hand man. Chet didn't want the AD job. I put him in any sport I could put him in."

"His coaching went beyond practices and games and strategies and all that. He was a great friend to all of his athletes."

McPhee, who died Dec. 14 at age 83, was an eclectic guy. He was, Hazelton said, probably the only one in the Trinity athletic department with a doctoral degree. He played in a band and loved jazz and big-band music. He died while broadcasting his radio show, "Sunrise Serenade," on Trinity's campus station, WRTC, on the morning of Dec. 14.

"I called him every [Friday] in the morning, but that day, I had a physical," his longtime friend Bob Parzych said. "I was coming down Route 9 and I turned on the radio. I heard the white noise. The transmitter was on. Something was up. There was nobody on the air."

"I called his house, no answer. Chet had a bout of pneumonia two years ago. I called his daughter-in-law. They got a call from Hartford Hospital. Before he hit the ground, he was gone."

Parzych was the one who got McPhee, who lived in Newington, into radio. Parzych came to Trinity to play football in 1972, where he met McPhee.

"He was one of those unique individuals, as a coach, where it wasn't about winning," said Parzych, who lives in Berlin. "It was more about playing the game and having fun. He really let the kids run it."

Parzych wasn't getting a lot of varsity playing time, so by his senior year, he was ready to stop playing. Hazelton was the defensive coach and told Parzych he should talk to McPhee about helping coach.

They became lifelong friends, coaching football and soccer together from 1975 to 1994, when McPhee retired. Hazelton still maintained an office for him at Trinity.

"He came in every day and read the paper," Hazelton said. "I had him do different projects. He was an English major, a good writer. He would substitute teach PE classes. He would do anything. He was always around, always had a smile on his face."

Parzych remembered a typical McPhee football coaching moment: third-and-15, a nervous quarterback, Trinity had to make a big play. McPhee would call a timeout and act as if he were diagramming a big play.

But he was really saying, 'Do whatever you want,'" Parzcyh said. "Just to relax everybody. Then the quarterback would make this big play. [McPhee] had nothing to do with it. We would all laugh."
Or how about the time the Trinity freshmen were going to scrimmage the University of Hartford's club team, back in 1977 or '78?

"We had a good team," Parzych said. "We had 25 kids on the team. Hartford had like 80. They got off the bus and we saw their team. He turns to me and says, 'Everybody in here.'"

Everybody gathered around, expecting to hear some pearls of wisdom.

"'Just remember, the bigger they are, the harder they hit,'" Parzych recalled McPhee's saying.

"They're like, 'What did he just say?' They all started laughing. That's the kind of stuff he did. I don't think Hartford scored a point on us."

His 1984 women's swim team went 10-0. The scoreboard at the Trinity pool is named after him. Many Trinity athletes considered him their mentor.

McPhee, Parzych said, never wanted to be called Dr. McPhee.

"It was never about Chet," he said. "It was always about you. He was just that sort of person. I haven't really cried yet. Part of it is that he's still here."

Parzych, who is the radio station's sports director and has been the voice of Trinity hockey for the past 35 years, has a Monday afternoon show called "The Kitchen Sink." McPhee started on his show.

"He would come in and do big-band stuff," Parzych said. "We called it 'Chet's Corner.' Chet was wide open to anything, all different types of artists. That was interesting for someone of his age. He loved his big bands."

"He was kind of the Bob Steele of WRTC. He was into puns. He had a dry sense of humor. [When they coached football], we would start a pun chain. The [other] assistant coaches would get away from us. They didn't want to be near us."

Robin Sheppard, Trinity's associate athletic director and former field hockey coach, arrived at Trinity when she was 22. He was one of her coaching mentors.

"Chet was maybe the second person I met in Hartford and he was kind of a father away from home," she said. "He was a raconteur, a very talented storyteller. He would tell these anecdotes filled with a lot of corny puns and rhymes — he told them over and over, being egged on by us.

"His family shared him with us. He spent a lot of hours in the Ferris Athletic Center with us."

The official article can be found on the Hartford Courant website, along with his obituary under the second link below:

http://articles.courant.com/2012-12-29/sports/hc-riley-column-1230-20121229_1_trinity-athletic-director-freshman-football-coach-rick-hazelton

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/hartfordcourant/obituary.aspx?pid=161852695#fbLoggedOut

Johnson Breaks Records, Qualifies for NCAA's

Junior Emily Johnson won the three-meter at the Hamilton Invite with an NCAA qualifying score of 440.75, and recorded an NCAA qualifying score of 408.70 off the one-meter board. Both Johnson's scores were new team records for Trinity. The broken records were held by Johnson and were achieved at NESCAC Championships in prior seasons. We can't wait to see what Emily will do at this years NESCAC meet and beyond, the sky is the limit!

Bantams Shine at Hamilton Invite

Johnson sets new 1-Meter and 3-Meter records at Hamilton Invite

The Bantams closed out the first semester by competing  at the Hamilton Invitational. Both teams had some impressive first semester swims and have set themselves up for a great second semester.

The women's meet was highlighted by the performance of junior diver Emily Johnson. Johnson won the three-meter with an NCAA-qualifying score of 440.75, and recorded an NCAA-qualifying score of 408.70 off the one-meter board. Johnson's scores on both boards were good enough to break her team records for both events. In the pool sophomore Audrey Butler took top honors in the 50 breaststroke with a time of 32.43. Senior Shelby Friel and juniors Megan Chiu and Joanna Wycech each recorded two second-place finishes for the Bantams.

The men's team was led by first-year Nick Celestin. Celestin won the 100 butterfly in a team record time of 52.64. He bettered the previous record of 52.89 set by Andrew Boynton in 2011. Celestin also won the 200 butterfly with a 1:56.59. His final individual win came in the 100 individual medley with a time of 54.72, breaking Dan Remigino's previous record of 55.28 set in 2008.  Junior co-captain Mark Yanagisawa added third-place performances in the 200 butterfly and the 400 IM to help lead the men to a third place finish.

This meets concludes the first semester of swimming and diving at Trinity. We wish the best of luck to all our swimmers and divers as they enter final exams next week. Let's go Bantams!