Olympic-level athlete hopes to be an inspiration to youth swimmers at Lakeview and beyond
BATTLE CREEK - Seemingly, with every stroke, many youth swimmers in our area are chasing a dream to compete in their sport at the college level, or maybe, one day at the Olympics.
What better person to help with that goal than someone who has been there and done that, as one of the top swimmers ever to come out of our state spoke to a group of young athletes at the Lakeview High School pool on Saturday.
As part of the Sunshine Toyota Stroke Clinic, former University of Michigan swimmer Miranda Tucker spoke to a group of 70 youth swimmers from the Lakeview Aquatic Club, Mid-Michigan Aquatics (Lansing) and Greater Kalamazoo Crocs, hoping to inspire them to go after their goals in the sport she loves.
"It always feels good to see these fresh young faces at a clinic like this," Tucker said. "And, it's great to maybe be an inspiration to them."
MORE: New Cereal City Swimming School backed by over 150 years of coaching experience
Tucker is an Olympic-level swimmer who is one of the fastest female breaststrokers ever to come out the high school ranks in Michigan. From Livonia, Tucker competed at the University of Michigan, where she won multiple Big Ten championships. She went on to be a four-time Olympic Trials qualifier. Tucker currently works as a professional swimmer and travels the country to run stroke clinics.
"Michigan swimming has a lot of potential," Tucker said. "Having traveled around the world, competing for Team USA, being in the Olympics Trials and competing at the college level, I realized my hometown or home state could benefit from these sort of clinics. So, I am happy to be home to help get that started.
"These clinics help with a lot of technique stuff, helping these young swimmers learn from someone who has been where they are at now and has kind of gone through the process."
The Stroke Clinic is part of an overall larger association, started up this year by former Lakeview High swim coach Kyle Lott, along with the Lakeview Aquatics Club. The creation of the Sunshine Toyota Sprint Series League, featuring club teams from Battle Creek, Kalamazoo and Lansing, focuses on developmental swimmers. Tucker was joined at the clinic by Kelton Graham, a longtime coach from the Detroit area, said to be one of the best breaststroke technicians in the state.
"With the Olympics being this summer, that spurred a lot of interest into making something like this happen. With this new league and these new clinics we will run throughout the summer, it is an add on to what we were already doing with our Cereal City Swimming School, which is just booming with over 400 kids registered in our first year," Lott said. "With the series and the clinics, the idea is to focus on one particular stroke each meet. The kids practice for two weeks on that stroke, then compete in that stroke and then we move on throughout the summer and the year."
Bringing in Tucker, Lott is hoping his young group can be inspired.
"In order to be interesting for the kids in a clinic like this, you have to do something different," Lott said. "You have to bring in some really high-end athletes and that's what we did, bring in somebody like Miranda. She is on the cutting edge of training and competition and we can learn a lot from her.
"The kids are going to walk away from this clinic kinda inspired, we hope."
Contact Bill Broderick at bbroderi@battlecreekenquirer.com. Follow him on X/Twitter @billbroderick.
This article originally appeared on Battle Creek Enquirer: Ex-Michigan star Miranda Tucker speaks to youth swimmers at Lakeview
