For Howard girls’s swimming and diving group, championship is ‘for all those that paved the best way’

Six inches of snow, icy roads, and a harmful stroll to Howard University. In January, that was the truth for Nicholas Askew, Howard’s director of swimming and diving, as a vicious snowstorm hit Washington, D.C. 

The timing couldn’t have been worse for Askew. He was within the midst of making ready Howard’s swimming and diving groups for the Northeast Conference (NEC) championship, particularly the ladies’s group, which was trying to declare its first NEC championship in program historical past. The climate situations made transportation to campus amenities tough, so he made obligatory practices optionally available.

“I remember our coaching staff talking about whether or not it would be safe to even walk to practice,” Askew stated. “We had a lot of concerns about getting our team there.”

Well, group captain Skylar Debnam had a unique thought.

“An optional practice? Nah, nothing was going to be optional,” Debnam stated. “The different group captains and I informed everybody to depart for follow half-hour earlier and to journey in teams. We needed to ensure that in case anyone slipped and fell, there can be someone there to assist them up.

“We knew we had to take precautionary measures, but at the end of the day, everybody was going to be there. It was a no-brainer.”

Those practices paid off. The Howard girls’s swimming and diving group gained its first NEC championship at school historical past on Feb. 20 at Spire Academy in Ohio. The males’s group additionally gained, claiming its second consecutive championship and its third in 4 years.

Howard is the primary and solely traditionally Black faculty and college (HBCU) to win a convention championship in swimming and diving.

“We overheard that our women’s team captains told the group that they expect to see everyone at practice,” Askew stated. “That was a type of ‘right on’ moments. I bear in mind saying to myself, ‘Yes! This team is on it.’

“Accomplishing this is huge. Actually, it’s ginormous. It’s so big that you have to start making up words to describe it. And knowing that we accomplished this on the 100th anniversary of Black History Month … it’s just extraordinary.”

Askew, who described the victory as “full circle,” recalled how issues performed out a 12 months in the past, when the lads’s group claimed its second NEC championship and the ladies’s group was the runner-up.

“After the women’s team lost last year, I remember seeing them come together,” Askew stated. “But the very best half is that they did it on their very own. They did it and not using a coach’s immediate. We noticed our leaders actually step up, they usually pledged to one another that they’d do no matter it took for that to not occur once more.

“I knew then that we had a special team. I knew they’d do whatever it took to make sure the results were different this year.”

Howard males’s swimmer Ty Triche remembers the ladies’s ultimate race vividly. The males’s group had already secured its championship, which meant he obtained to take a seat again and watch the ladies’s group chase a title he had already gained.

The Bison held a 13-point advantage over Central Connecticut State University getting into the final race of the competitors.

“If you haven’t seen that race yet, then go watch it,” he informed Andscape. “I simply bear in mind standing there with the most important smile on my face. I used to be watching each single member of our 400 girls’s relay group, and the hole simply stored getting wider and wider and wider. All I may assume was, ‘Oh my God. Is this really about to happen? We’re each about to win convention championships.’

“Seeing the joy on their faces [the women] was amazing. We’ve watched the women’s team climb up this ladder of trying to achieve this goal all four years. To see them achieve it was the best thing ever. And the fact that we did it together made it even better.”

Debnam described the win as “surreal.”

“I can’t even begin to tell you how much we prayed that whole week,” she stated. “Honestly, I think it still hasn’t really hit me yet. But in that moment, it was just lots of tears, hugs and the feeling of ‘we finally did it.’ We also thought about all the swimmers before us. We really felt like the victory wasn’t just for us, but [also for] all those who paved the way.”

Howard is the only HBCU with an NCAA Division I swimming and diving group. According to USA Swimming, fewer than 2% of all NCAA swimmers are Black.

It wasn’t misplaced on Triche and Debnam that every one of their convention championship rivals appeared nothing like them. They needed to be dwelling proof for younger Black swimmers that even when the percentages will not be in your favor, you may nonetheless beat them.

“Back home in Texas, there’s a lot of Black kids getting into swimming,” Triche stated. “When I obtained to Howard, I began to see the affect that I’ve on these youngsters. I get messages from my mother asking if she may give random folks my quantity so I can discuss to their youngsters. We get letters from folks throughout saying, ‘We’re rooting for y’all. Keep holding it down.’

“Until I got here [to Howard], I didn’t realize how important it was to our community to show that Black people do swim. We’re one of those faces that encourages kids to stay in the sport longer.”

Young ladies additionally look as much as Debnam.

“I remember when I was a freshman and a little girl came up to me and said, ‘Oh my God, are you Skylar?’ Her mom asked for pictures, and I was taken aback by it because I had just gotten on campus,” she stated, chuckling. “But it’s moments like that that make everything worth it.”

Before Askew turned the director of Howard’s swimming and diving groups, he was a swimmer on the college. He began his faculty profession in 1996 and gained six convention championships, broke a number of data, and was inducted into the Howard University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2022.

When requested what he discovered most rewarding of getting spearheaded Howard’s first NEC double championship victory, Askew playfully objected.

“Come on now, you know you can’t ask me that,” he stated, grinning. “Man, this program just means so much to me. To pinpoint one thing that’s been the most rewarding is so difficult because there are too many.”

The success of Howard’s program is about greater than wins and damaged data, he defined. It’s additionally about this system’s affect on the better neighborhood.

“When we do what we do, and see how many people we’ve touched … it’s priceless. We get messages all the time about how inspiring we are,” he stated. “I got a note from an 85-year-old woman who said she started swim class because of our team here at Howard. That’s huge. That’s the most rewarding part about what I do. It’s bigger than any one of us.”