Carver’s Lauren Freiberg, Jordan’s Mike McCraine chosen as All-Bi-City Swimming Coaches of the Year

Two Muscogee County high schools added swimming programs for the 2016-2017 season. The process by which they came to be, however, could not have been more different.

Lauren Freiberg was in the midst of watching the Summer Olympics when she received an email sent to all Carver High School faculty. The school was looking to add swimming, and the administration was in search of a head coach to lead the team.

On almost pure instinct, Freiberg, who swam competitively for 13 years, quickly replied and said she was very much interested in the position. Before too long, the job was hers.

Her background as a swimmer made returning to the sport via coaching a no-brainer.

“It was such a huge part of my life,” Freiberg said. “All of my friends were swimmers. It was kind of what my life revolved around: morning practices, afternoon practices and weekend meets. I was excited to get back into it.”

McCraine’s foray into the sport was, well, a little less by choice than Freiberg’s.

One of Jordan’s athletic directors came to McCraine, who was not coaching at the time, and requested he take on the role of swimming head coach about two weeks before practices began. McCraine had watched swimming in the Olympics much like Freiberg was doing when she took the Carver job. Outside of that, his experience was extremely limited.

“I was lost,” McCraine said. “I didn’t know what to expect, didn’t know what we were going to do. I had no idea how to run practices. I’ve got kids in class, and we’re Googling YouTube (videos).”

McCraine said he received a tremendous amount of support from people throughout Columbus’ swimming community, including Columbus High head coach Karen Waters, who offered guidance on the job. Columbus High also pitched in and bought the Jordan swimmers’ uniforms, making the quick transition into a team that much easier.

Carver and Jordan ended up with seven swimmers for their first season.

For Freiberg, her biggest challenge was getting her swimmers in the necessary physical condition, which was no easy task considering some of her swimmers struggled to swim from one side of the pool and back. Freiberg had to scale back what she did as a high school swimmer at Columbus and started with the basics, using swimming games such as finding the ring at the bottom of the pool as a means to help her team get better.

“I tried to make it fun for them,” Freiberg said. “I didn’t want them to burn out and not have fun with it, because they’d probably quit pretty easily. We just tried to have a good time. They learned a lot, and I was really proud of them.”

Both teams limited the amount of meets they participated in in an effort to ease the swimmers into the sport. Still, there were special moments for each program that made the uphill climb of creating a new team worth it.

For Freiberg, it was the first time her team competed.

“I loved our first meet and having my kids before that going, ‘I can’t do this. I don’t think I can do this. I really can’t do this.’ They were like sweating bullets in a pool,” Freiberg said. “I told them, ‘No, you can. You really can. You’ve done it at practice.’ To have them complete their first race and be so proud of themselves, that made it all worth it.”

McCraine, meanwhile, pointed to the progress he saw throughout the season. Like Freiberg, McCraine saw his swimmers struggle to swim laps during the opening practices. Gradually, the Jordan swimmers got their feet under them, which made McCraine feel like the sport was really clicking for them.

“The kids improved every meet we had,” McCraine said. “To me, that was them being excited. ‘Hey, I did this last time, and now I need to do this.’ That was exciting to me.”

Both coaches spoke about their goals for the coming season, each saying they want to double their participants. Freiberg is losing only one senior, and the other swimmers have already voiced their intent on coming back. McCraine said he’s already hearing from potential team members, just a sign that the initial foundation both coaches have laid out is a strong one.

“I was just proud of the kids,” McCraine said. “They came out, they worked and they came to every practice. They worked on improving every practice. Being our first year, that’s all I could ask. It was more them than it was me.”

This story was originally published April 25, 2017 at 1:33 PM with the headline "Carver’s Lauren Freiberg, Jordan’s Mike McCraine chosen as All-Bi-City Swimming Coaches of the Year."