Sports

Travis Pollen breaks national paralympic record

Travis-pollen-breaks-paralympic-record

Jake Mrozewski | Phoenix Staff

Travis Pollen recently set the American Paralympic record in the 100-year freestyle with a time of 54.80 seconds.

In print | March 4, 2010

It was the result of perseverance, dedication and resilience. Of overcoming two disappointing swims on the first two days of the Centennial Conference Championships in Lancaster, Pa. Of embracing hard work, months of training, and finally a few extra hours of sleep. The race started and Travis Pollen ’12 dove into the Franklin & Marshall Pool. Four laps and three flip-turns later, he set the American Paralympic Record for the 100-yard freestyle.

Pollen didn’t know for sure that he had set the record when he touched the wall at the end of the fourth lap. He had hoped to set the Paralympic Record in the 50-freestyle on the first days of the championship only to fall just short and his backstroke results on the second day were equally frustrating. But when he looked up at the scoreboard and saw the time of 54.80 seconds, he knew. New record.

Pollen was born with proximal femoral focal deficiency, a non-hereditary birth defect, which resulted in the fusing of his left knee and hip. He had his left foot amputated at the age of three allowing him to wear a more comfortable prosthesis.

Though he had always been comfortable in the water, Pollen didn’t begin swimming competitively until his sophomore year of high school. Unlike most collegiate swimmers, his accomplishments this year are only five years in the making. “Having started only five years ago to now being pretty competitive with the top guys, I feel that is a pretty big accomplishment,” Pollen said.

Pollen is quick to note that it took hard work to acquire his record-breaking speed. He describes his first year of swimming as “terrible, swimming with the slowest kids on the team.” But when he began to train year- round, as opposed to just during the high school season, Pollen muscled his way up the time charts. By his junior year in high school, he was swimming with the fastest guys on his team.

His teammate Sterling Satterfield ‘11, who won three metals at the 2010 Conference Meet in Lancaster, has been impressed by the strides Pollen has made in so few years. “He wants to do everything right, both in an out of the pool. For a swimmer who has only been swimming for four years he has incredible mental toughness and an unmatched work ethic,” Satterfield said.

Back in November, at the start of the 2009-2010 Swarthmore swim season, Pollen came close to breaking the American Paralympic Records in the 50-free and 100-free on various occasions and has since worked to put himself in a position to challenge those records at the Conference meet.

But when Pollen completed his first swim of the Conference meet, the 50-free, he saw his time was a half second over his time from November’s at the Swarthmore Invitational. It was a blow to his confidence, as he had missed the Paralympic Record by only three-tenths of a second in November, but he was determined to come back on the second day of the competition with a stronger performance.

Though Pollen had been primarily a back-stroker in his first year at Swarthmore, he focused on freestyle this year after nearly breaking the Paraylmpic Records in November. But at the Conference meet, he decided to swim backstroke for fun, only to end his race a second slower than his performance as a first-year. He was worried. “I didn’t know what was wrong – I thought I should have been faster,” Pollen said.

At the end of the second day of competition, Pollen was approached by assistant coach Charlie Kennedy, who used a baseball analogy to help him regroup for his final swim. “What he told me that I liked the most was that Ryan Howard doesn’t hit a homerun every time he steps up to the plate. I really took that to heart – you aren’t going to always get your fastest time every time you step up on the block … I took the approach on [the last day of the meet] that it was a new day and that I should forget about the other swims.”

Day three. The final day of the 2010 Centennial Conference meet. Hours before Pollen’s final swim (the record-breaking 100-freestyle) he still was not feeling well. He had struggled to sleep the previous night and knew that if he warmed up with the rest of his teammates before the start of the day’s action, his muscles would tighten up because he wasn’t swimming until late in the morning session. So, he took a nap. “I slept for an hour and then warmed up and stretched, and there wasn’t much time between that and the race.”

In the 100-freestyle at the season opening Swarthmore Invitational, Travis was .08 seconds slower than the American Paralympic Record and so even after struggling for the first two days of the meet, he knew that he was in a position to challenge this record. When he climbed up to the blocks, he stopped thinking.

The race started. Twenty-five yards, flipturn. Fifty yards, flipturn. Seventy-five yards, flipturn. “When I touched the wall, I wasn’t sure that I had done it – and then I saw the time. 54.80, the record,” Pollen said.

Excitement. For Pollen, his teammates, his coaches and everyone at the Conference meet. Assistant coach Casmera Wick described the moment: “I just looked over at [head coach Sue Davis] and said ‘He did it! He did it!’ I was jumping up and down and was pretty pumped, and all of his teammates were giving him a big hug and lifting him up the ground.”

Throughout his first two years at Swarthmore, Pollen has made a strong impact on all of his teammates and coaches through his love of swimming. “His contributions in practice and in terms of team chemistry are pretty much unmatched. He always has a positive attitude and is never slacking. He’s a teammate that really knows how to push his teammates and bring the best out of everyone,” Satterfield said.

“Seeing him here every day, always doing what’s asked, really motivates the team,” said Wick. “As far as outside of the pool, he’s really a great guy. He’s always positive and never complaining. I think that really spreads around to everyone else.”

When Pollen broke the 100-free record, his teammates couldn’t have been happier for him. “It had to mean the world to him and the team was 100 percent behind him. I’ve never seen a team cheer so loud for a single swimmer in all of my life,” Satterfield added.

Having broken the six-year-old record, Travis Pollen will next compete at the United States Spring National meet in San Antonio on March 25-27. Perseverance. Dedication. Resilience.

Accomplishment.