York teen, University of Florida commit to swim against world's best
Leah Braswell straps her ankles together and slips into the pool. This isn't a hard day for the Manchester teen. She calls it a "getting back into it" workout. Just one step in a progression toward her appearance at the FINA World Junior Swimming Championships later this summer.
Taking no rest between repeated 50-yard swims, she decreases her time in each successive split.
Coaches call it negative splits. Each new split harder and faster than the last.
"It's impressive," said York YMCA swimming head coach John Nelson, holding a stopwatch to monitor her performance.
Braswell, 17, is the next great youth swimmer to come through the York YMCA. Earlier this month, she verbally committed to attend and swim for the University of Florida in 2018, but she's different than some of the other swimmers to come through the program. She managed to obliterate what some people thought they knew about her at the USA Swimming National Championships in June.
Known for her fast times in distance events, Braswell was considered a possible candidate to reach the final in the 1,500-meter freestyle. Then she recorded the fastest time in the nation for a girl under the age of 17 in the 200-meter freestyle and 400 free.
Her performances secured her a spot on Team USA at the FINA World Junior Championships held in August in Indianapolis. She could potentially swim in three events at the world junior championships, since she qualified for the 4x200 freestyle relay team with her top time in the 200.
"I'm super excited, I mean I'm a little nervous because it's my first time representing the United States, but I think it will be awesome," Braswell said.
"Finals was crazy, and everyone was insane," Braswell said about watching swimmers' reactions to qualifying for the world championships. "As soon as people hit the wall, everyone was flipping out like crazy to see the scoreboard whether they made it or not."
Nelson expected Braswell's fast times.
He didn't expect the nation's fastest times.
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Braswell is different than the rest of her family: She's the swimmer.
Oh, all six of the Braswell children swim, but one by one they all stepped away from the pool for one reason or another.
The family might be more well-known around York for another sport.
Leah's older brothers Stephen and Luke played on state championship boys' volleyball teams at Northeastern High School, with Stephen moving on to play volleyball at St. Francis and Luke moving on to play at Penn State.
"My entire family plays volleyball, so our backyard is basically a volleyball court," Braswell said, laughing.
She still plays with her family, but at age 9, when she followed Stephen to the York YMCA to swim, she found the sport she wanted to focus on.
"I fell in love with it," Braswell said.
Her personality seems a perfect fit for the sport that demands grueling workouts.
"It's not a chore for her or a job," Nelson said. "It's more like fun progress, at least that's what I think."
Nationals might have served as a breakthrough performance, but it has also been part of her steady improvement and development.
"It's hard for me to see and tell what she's going to do from year to year because she's just been on this nice trajectory," mother Nicole Braswell said.
"She's really low key. She's very, very excited but you're never going to see her jumping up and down. As long as she's smiling at the end of the race, you know it's a good thing."
The York YMCA's success at the national level dates back to at least the 1940s, when future Olympic bronze medalist Bob Sohl and Bill Schmidt, another U.S. Olympic Trials swimmer, competed for the team. The last decade has seen the club return to national prominence.
Former York YMCA swimmer Hali Flickinger reached the 2016 Olympics, and University of Tennessee sophomore Meghan Small (Class of 2016) and University of Georgia freshman Courtney Harnish (Class of 2017) were named the top recruits in the nation in back-to-back years by the online site SwimSwam.
"Having kids like Meghan and Courtney — who have gone to meets like this before and now I'm there — it's really cool to see the progression we have here," Braswell said. "Making meets like that is basically our goal."
Nelson put it another way.
"Some people think being great is not for them, they can't be that good, but when they see a friend do it, they believe they can do it, too," he said.
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The impressive part about all of this is Braswell's age.
She turned 17 in June.
She became the youngest swimmer at the USA Swimming National Championships to qualify for one of the top 16 spots in the final of the 400-meter freestyle. She even led the B-final at the halfway point.
MORE SWIMMING: Flickinger secures spot at world championships
MORE SWIMMING: York teens post top-20 times at nationals
The visual evidence at the event hammered home the age gap: All the other women wore swim caps from NCAA programs; Braswell donned her black YMCA cap. Sure enough, a Penn State University junior edged her for third place in the B-final.
It didn't seem fair: A girl swimming against women.
Yet this is fun for Braswell. She hopes to be racing these same women regularly in the next year or two.
Home-schooled, she earned her high school diploma a year ahead of schedule. She plans to use this year as a "gap year," taking classes at the HACC York campus before moving to Gainesville, Florida, next fall.
"At this point, being the top American in multiple events, any school would want that on their team unless they've already filled their recruiting class with commits," Nelson said earlier this month about the college interest in Braswell.
Her trip to the world championships will mark her fifth time swimming in Indianapolis at the famed pool, the site of 11 Olympic Trials hundreds of NCAA championships. For Braswell, it's another big meet, in a career she hopes will be filled with them.
"Ultimately you go to college to get an education and that's what I'm doing, but it's exciting to be able to further my swimming career also," Braswell said. "By the end of my college career if I think that I have a chance to keep going and have a chance to go professional I would love to do that."
6th FINA World Junior Swimming Championships
When: Aug. 23-28
Where: Indianapolis
Venue: Indiana Natatorium on campus of IUPUI
Eligible swimmers: boys ages 15-18, girls ages 14-17
U.S. qualifiers: top 2 from U.S.A. national championships
Local swimmer: York YMCA's Leah Braswell
Braswell's events: 200-meter free, 400 free, 800 free relay