Splash! An interview with swim team captain Alyssa Pankau

You’re standing on the block, ready to leap into the water. You’ve been training for this race for the last 2 months. Perform your best and have your ticket punched to the state championship. Belly flop right off the start and you’ve let your team, coaches, and most of all, yourself down. Sounds good?

Welcome to the swim team.

Of course there is more to swimming than just the pressure of a big race. Behind every swim team there’s many hours of practice and a countless number of bonding moments between teammates. UHS swim team captain Alyssa Pankau says, “You will not meet another sports team as close as we are,” and if you’ve been around the team, it’s easy to see why.

Pankau has been swimming since she was 5 years old and never looked back. During her first sectional meet as a freshman and the youngest swimmer in the competition, she set a 30 second personal record in her favorite event, the 500 meters.

Unfortunately last season Pankau suffered a knee injury which her doctor had only seen one other case of. It knocked her out of swimming for the majority of the season but instead of getting down on herself, Pankau went to all the meets, announcing the events and dives, cheering for her teammates the entire time.

Now it’s the 2020 season and as the team captain, she loves her swim team even more, saying excitedly, “I get to plan pasta parties, and I get to plan team bonding events, and I get to be so much more involved with all the underclassmen!”

With this being Pankau’s last year as a high school swimmer, the decision of swimming in college is a natural next step. “I’m going to try and swim in college. I’m probably not going to get a scholarship because I don’t have that many times because I didn’t get to swim last year, but I’ll make the best of it,” she says.

If you’ve ever met Alyssa Pankau, there’s no doubting that she will make the best of it for sure.