Lady Rams swim coach weighs all the factors that go into naming captains for new season

August 31, 2023 at 12:01 a.m.

Junior Morgan Saunders (left) and senior Jaina Gonzalez are this year’s Port Chester High School girls’ swim team co-captains. (Courtesy photo of Colleen Cahill)

When it comes to choosing a Lady Rams swim team captain, head coach Colleen Cahill thinks long and hard before making that decision. She doesn't want it to be based on seniority, popularity or ability, but her choice looks at that indefinable more like heart, dedication, motivation, hard work plus the ability to inspire by example, not just words.

And when there are 27 girls involved, all of whom go the extra mile simply by being there each weekday morning to start practice at 5:45 a.m., the only time the team's Carver Center home pool is available to them and then only until 7:15 a.m.

That schedule began with the season's first official fall season practice Aug. 21. And will continue once school starts this coming week.  That means grabbing a quick shower, breakfast and then off to class. And that will continue with time outs for regular dual meets which start next Monday (9/11) at home against Brewster at 5 p.m. followed by three more consecutive home meets against Pearl River/Albertus Magnus, Poughkeepsie and Mount Vernon on 9/13, 9/20 and 27, all Wednesdays, at 4:30 p.m.

Choices, choices

That gave Cahill something of a dilemma. Should she wait until after the first meet before naming a new captain? Or should she make the announcement the weekend before the dual meet season starts to give the team a boost before the racing begins?

      

"I wanted naming the captains to mean something to the team and give the captaincy to students who deserve the title, and not just give it to someone because they are a senior or socially popular or the best swimmer," said Cahill, a former collegiate swimmer for Fordham/Marymount. "I look at attendance over the past seasons, general leadership in the pool during practice, their work ethic and how they treat new swimmers."

The decision process

And that's not all. Because she also gives the team members the opportunity to make nominations and email her votes for the position as well. But when it comes to the final decision, she and her assistant coach make the choice based on all of the above as well as all they see.

And this year, she will announce the decision on Friday, Sept. 1, making it a day to remember for the Lady Rams.

And you read it here first because the two new Lady Ram swim captains are hard-working senior Jaina Gonzalez, who was a co-captain last year, and junior Morgan Saunders, who was on two school record-breaking sprint relays last year along with her just graduated big sister Madeline and the Marquez sisters, Chantal and Chenoa.

The splash off

Cahill, a special education teacher at the Thomas Edison School in the Port Chester School District, thinks that decision and the new co-captains’ leadership will lead to good things happening during the season ahead. And the Lady Rams swim team, the earliest risers of any of the athletes on Port Chester's seven fall season teams, certainly deserves good things happening.

So do all the hard-working student-athletes on Port Chester's Rams football and cross-country teams, Rams and Lady Rams soccer and the Lady Rams tennis and volleyball teams, all of whom will be starting their new fall season in the next few days.