While still new to St. Edward’s, the club swim team is proving to be a promising part of campus life.

Sophomore Curran Kelly serves as the St. Edward’s Club Swimming team President. This semester is shaping up as a promising catalyst for  the burgeoning swim team, as the team competed in its first meet on Oct. 15 at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD).

“This is our first full semester of competition. We came back from our first meet at UTD  where our girls team place third, our boys team placed fourth, and we placed fourth overall out of five teams,” Kelly said.

The team is growing and Kelly added some insight as to how and why they’re reaching new levels of growth this semester.

“We have about thirty members right now. We had about fifteen last semester, so we doubled this semester,” Kelly said.

He explained how there has been great participation not just from the incoming freshman, but also from upperclassmen.

When Kelly is not shredding laps at the pool, he is significantly involved at St. Edward’s. He is a senator in the Student Government Association (SGA), a member of Digital Media Consortion, and he plans to go to Montreal for Campus Ministry’s International Immersion program.

Kelly elaborated on future plans and goals he wished for his young team.

“We are working on the rest of the schedule this season. We are definitely hosting a meet  in the second semester in February,” Kelly said.

There are no definitive dates for this meet yet.

The team’s vice president, sophomore Octavio Sanchez, is also involved in other activities at St. Edward’s. Sanchez serves as a senator in SGA with Kelly, works as a campus tour guide, is a student ambassador, and is also a member of Creating Spiritual Community.

“Curran and I started the club last spring and our goal is just to get the club’s name out there and to get people to join the club,” Sandhez said.

The club plans to throw a fund-raiser when they hosts a meet. Sanchez and Kelly are also hoping to send a swimmer to the east coast for a swim meet there.

As expected, the young club has faced organizational issues, but the members have risen to the challenge. Sanchez clarified that while club officers have to share duties at times, the club–like any chartered student organization–has its own constitution and officers with set duties.

“Curran is currently in charge of creating the workouts and logistics like the UT Dallas meet…Marie Clare is in charge of the financial aspect… She is also in charge of the social aspect… getting us involved outside of campus and just hanging out as a team,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez also serves as the a lifeguard at the RCC during the team’s meets, as the team is not required to pay the RCC for lifeguards. The university requires the club swim team to have their lifeguards on deck during practice.

Sanchez also organizes the roster and communicates with each individual swimmer to retain membership.