University of Massachusets Athletics
Sloan Off To Blazing Start As Freshman
April 03, 2006 | Men's Swimming & Diving
April 3, 2006
Brad Sloan had never competed in the mile before this season. He was never a distance swimmer. And for someone who is used to swimming 100 or 200 yards, the mile -- or 1,650 yards -- is completely foreign.
So on Feb. 18, when the 2005 Susquehannock High graduate swam his way to second place at the Atlantic 10 Conference Meet mile race, it was not only huge for his University of Massachusetts team, but also an amazing individual accomplishment -- an accomplishment that had both the swimmer and his coach in shock.
"He surprised the heck out of me," said UMass coach Russ Yarworth, who just finished his 27th season. "You have special swims throughout your career that stand out in your mind, and that will go down as one of the best swims of my career. It was just a kid really coming together when the team needed a big swim. And he delivered."
Sloan, a 5-foot-9 freshman for the Minutemen, swam a 16:04 at the A-10 meet, which scored his team a crucial 17 points in the race for the conference title -- although UMass fell nine points short of St. Bonaventure this year after winning five straight A-10 titles.
The former Warrior cut a full minute off a mile that he swam on Dec. 3, and his time was not only the fastest on the team this season, but the fourth-fastest in school history. Sloan said that even as he was swimming, he had no idea he was doing so well.
"Pretty much the whole race I thought I was in fourth or fifth," said Sloan, 19. "Then, as we got near the end, my teammates were walking along screaming at me, because I was in the outside lane. On the final lap, I heard the horn for the leader and I realized I wasn't too far behind. The whole place was going crazy as we went down the stretch."
Sloan finished four seconds behind Xavier's Sam Gray. Sloan also provided the team with another squad-best time in the 500-yard freestyle -- he finished fifth in the A-10 with a 4:38. Additionally, he cut his personal best by 10 seconds in the 400 individual medley with a 4:06, good enough for 10th in the conference.
Even though the Minutemen came up short in their quest for a sixth-straight A-10 title, the improvements Sloan saw over the course of his freshman season are impressive.
"You don't see a kid have these kinds of jumps (in time)," Yarworth said. "What Brad did is well beyond normal. But he did it himself. I gave him a guiding hand, but he did the work."
Cross-training works won ders: The work that Sloan did with the team included biking, running and weight training that started in September. The team also took a 10-day training trip to Puerto Rico in January that had them swimming three times a day, among other things. Sloan credited the new cross-training work for the solid end to his rookie year.
But he also said that "tapering" was a huge key to his success at the A-10 meet. Tapering is when swimmers gradually cut down on their training as they approach a big event. Sloan said that before he started tapering, he was swimming roughly 15-16,000 yards per day, and a day or two before the A-10, he was down to 1,000.
"Once we started tapering, I just felt a lot better in the water," said Sloan, who finished second in the state last spring in the 200-yard individual medley.
Sloan's potential is not lost on Yarworth, although the veteran coach knows continuing to cut time at this rate will be much harder.
"He did that in the mile, which is the true test of distance swimming," Yarworth said. "But now that he's made the first improvements, getting from 16:04 to 15:45 is a heck of a lot harder. We're just going to keep working on improving his endurance base."
After a month off, Sloan will return to offseason swimming workouts with Yarworth on Monday. The chemical engineering major said he would like "to knock off a couple records" before he's done at UMass.
But for now, Yarworth is just happy with how much Sloan achieved as a freshman.
"He had an absolutely wonderful breakout season for us," the coach said. "I couldn't be happier with him. He had a great attitude, gave a great effort and got great results."
-- Reach Colin Chmielew ski at cchmielewski@yorkdis patch.com or 505-5406.