Sarasota Sharks swim crew celebrates 65 years of excellence

Rick Walker was 9 when he started aggressive swimming.

He’s nonetheless doing it at 75.

“It becomes addictive,” stated the Sarasota Sharks Masters icon.

Missy Cleary can relate.

She started swimming at 6 and competing at 11.

The Sharks Masters swimmer goes sturdy at 55.

“Swimming is not a sport,” she stated. “It’s a lifestyle.”

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Then there’s Terri Goodman, 66, who began swimming at 7, resumed aggressive swimming after a 30-year break, and is within the pool for every day 90-minute practices that start at 5 a.m.

“And I’m in there until they kick me out,” joked the membership’s COO and devoted Masters swimmer.

Such is the tradition of the Sarasota Sharks Swim Team, a profitable program that may host the five-day YMCA Masters Nationals starting Wednesday, April 15 on the Selby Aquatic Center, representing the neighboring Palmer Ranch YMCA. It’s an annual spring championship for grownup YMCA members ages 18 and older and can convey greater than 600 elite Masters swimmers from almost 50 YMCAs throughout America. The occasion coincides with the Sharks’ sixty fifth anniversary as a community-based swim program targeted on youth improvement, water security, and aggressive excellence.

In addition, the Sharks are taking part within the 2026 Giving Challenge on April 15 and 16, elevating funds to improve services, and develop youth programming to satisfy rising demand and launch a brand new county-wide swim league this summer time.

The Sarasota Sharks Swim Team has the bonafides

It’s going to be a giant weekend on the pool and a showcase for the Sharks, who’ve a historical past of manufacturing high-caliber rivals, sending elite swimmers to U.S. Olympic Trials, and coaching world-class rivals beneath the path of Coach Brent Arckey.

Among them are:

• Emma Weyant, who gained a silver medal within the 400-meter particular person medley on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and bronze in Paris (2024).

• Canada’s Summer McIntosh, a three-time Olympian, skilled with the Sharks for roughly three years, together with for the 2024 Paris Olympics, successful gold there within the 400 IM and setting a world report (4:24.38).
• Tripp Schwenk was an Olympian (1992 in Barcelona, 1996 in Atlanta) who introduced dwelling gold and silver in backstroke occasions.

• Kim Linehan gained bronze within the 400M and 800M freestyle on the 1978 World Championships, gained the 800 within the 1982 Worlds, then broke the 1,500 world report on the 1979 U.S. Nationals. She was an Olympian in 1980, however the U.S. boycotted the Moscow Games. She was fourth within the 800 freestyle on the 1984 LA Games.

• The late Cindy Gettinger was a 1988 Paralympian, successful 4 gold medals at Seoul, setting 4 world data.

What’s extra, the Sharks have compiled a formidable report competing as a crew through the years:

• YMCA State Champions: 33 instances since 1985

• Florida Age Group Champions: 24 instances since 1976

• Florida Senior Champions: 13 instances since 2004

• YMCA National Champions: 18 instances since 1979.

Walker spoke concerning the causes for that continued success.

“The key is a good coaching staff (three full-time coaches, 8-10 part-time) which we have had, a consistency of staff most swim teams don’t have, then to build up momentum and a reputation, plus we have a great facility. You have (all) that, your odds are going to be good you’re going to be strong.”

There is an expectation all through the Sharks program, as properly.

Take it from Cleary, who has been a part of the group a technique or one other for 45 years.

“Ours is a tradition of excellence,” stated its former board of administrators president. “A bar has been set for all of us. Everybody who’s been successful here has taken that bar and raised it. It’s the culture. It’s hard work. It’s mind-numbing consistency. There’s no getting out of here easy. There’s no shortcut. You hit the wall, look at that clock, and that’s what it is. You put the work in or you didn’t. Coaches hold kids to that standard. There are no participation awards.”

Sarasota Sharks Masters success starts with man in charge

Walker is a part of that legacy of success.

A Sarasota native and former Sarasota High swimmer, he started the Masters program with three swimmers in 2002. That number now surpasses 300 and was the 2012 U.S. Masters Team of the Year.

Individually, Walker set Masters World Records in the 400M and 1500M freestyle and four World Championships at the 2025 Masters Worlds in Singapore. He received the Kerry O’Brien Award for Coaching Excellence in 2020 and was named U.S. Masters National Coach of the Year in 2023.

Funny, how he got started.

“We lived right down the street from the old Southgate Community Center. It was a great babysitting tool for my mother. We spent the whole day at the pool, go home for lunch, then go back to the pool.”

Walker stopped swimming after high school, went off to college, and began a food services distribution career, then resumed swimming in 1985.

“Before that I was a runner. I had a swimming background already, so the routine took over, five-six days a week. When I had a real job I swam at noontime. Now? I get in the water at 5.”

Swimmers find way back to pool

Cleary’s own swimming career took a detour.

She grew up in Mason, Michigan, starting swim lessons around 6 years old.

“I wasn’t good at anything on land, but I was good at that. Then we moved here when I was 11 and within 48 hours my dad had me … try out for the Sharks, and that was it. My dad saw it was a quality program and said you’re going to do that.”

After competing at Riverview High, Cleary stopped swimming, went to college, started a family and a real estate career. Then, when her son joined the Sharks at 8, she became a swim mom.

“It becomes your life. If you have to get up at 4 in the morning, the whole world revolves around that. It becomes a routine for your family. It starts at a young age and goes all the way through Masters. All my current friends are swim parents or current swimmers.”

Once her son started driving, Cleary got back in the pool herself 13 years ago, thanks to Walker.

Terri Goodman can relate.

A Saratoga, New York, native, she didn’t swim from the time she was 16 to 46 when she moved to Sarasota in 1998.

Meeting Rick a few years later changed that for the health care executive.

“He said show up, you find your friends, you find good people, you find your health improves.”

That resonated with Goodman, who had a total knee replacement and received encouragement from other swimmers during her painful rehab.

“People are there for you in good times and bad. Everybody has them. When you arrive here at 5 in the morning, people are smiling at you — even if you don’t want them to at 5 in the morning. It’s a great group to train with. These are your people. It’s a great community.”

One that’s far-reaching, too.

There’s a large board on the grounds bearing the emblems of 84 universities and colleges Shark alums attend around the country: Florida, Harvard, LaSalle, LSU, Miami, Michigan, Northwestern, Princeton, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and Virginia are but a few.

“The schools these kids go to?” Cleary said. “They use swimming as a tool to get them there. You know the time they have to put in there academically? It’s because of the discipline they learned here. They know how to get things done. They hold themselves to a higher level, and it starts here.”

Walker, Cleary, and Goodman still abide by it.

Maybe not seven days a week, though.

“Got to give your body a break,” Walker said. “Getting old now.”