Oct. 11, 2016
by Dan Froehlich, Auburn Media Relations
A $5 deck entry was all it took for Grant Schenk’s swimming future to change.
A butterflier up until the age of 12, Schenk was at a club meet when his coach asked him if he had $5 - and if he did would he like to enter the mile. He had the money and the desire. And after swimming a near-perfect mile, the course of his swimming life had gone from a sprint to a battle of will and testament.
The mile can be a long, grueling event. In college swimming, where events are swum in 25-yard increments, that is 66 lengths of the pool. That leaves a lot of time while staring endlessly at a solid black line at the bottom of the pool.
“A song. Or prayer. Or trying to just talk myself through it. Or I just turn my brain off and just swim and stare at the line. Autopilot,” Schenk says of what runs through his mind during what can be a 15-plus minute swim.
Schenk grew up in San Diego and has qualified for each of the last two USA Olympic Team Trials. Both times the international business major knew going in that his chances of making the team were just like the 1,650 freestyle – long.
“I went in 2012 so I had the benefit of knowing the size and immensity of it (in 2016)”, he said. “For me, I knew I wasn’t going to make the team, which wasn’t negative self-talk, it was just about the experience and being with the team. It was amazing. Zero point one percent of swimming elite get to go. It’s incredible.”
But those long odds of being an Olympian have not deterred Schenk in setting goals well beyond that single black line in the pool. He was recently named one of two SEC student-athletes to represent the conference at the NCAA Leadership Forum in Baltimore in November.
“I was reading an article the other day and someone was quoted as saying, ‘To be a great leader first you must be a great follower.’ In other words, people can be leaders with a title and people can be leaders without a title,” Schenk said. “Often times a leader isn’t the loudest person in the group but is leading by example, connecting with people, asking them how their day is going, stuff like that.
“Jeremiah 29:11 is my verse for my life: ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord. ‘Plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,’” Schenk said.
With his junior season now underway, Schenk and Auburn will have a chance to see how this year’s team is molding into leaders and followers and hopefully get a glimpse of how things will go in the spring championship season when it swims a dual meet against Kentucky on Wednesday at home. Having claimed dual meet wins on both the men’s and women’s side last week at Wisconsin, things are certainly looking good.
Diving will begin at 11 a.m. and swimming will follow at noon from the James E. Martin Aquatics Center.
Admission is free.
The meet will air live on SEC Network+.