Phys ed find develops into WW-PN contributor

Norrington now a Knight boys’ swim team captain

By: Justin Feil
   Physical education class is designed to keep students’ bodies as sharp as their minds. Rarely at the high school level does it open a door to successful athletic careers.
   Eric Norrington is an exception.
   The West Windsor-Plainsboro High North senior traces his boys’ swimming team roots to phys ed, Knights head coach Cheryl Reca’s department, when he was a sophomore.
   "A friend of Ms. Reca’s said ‘he’s not that bad,’" Norrington said. "She just asked me why I wasn’t on the team. I had never thought about it. I hadn’t swum since I was in fifth grade with a club team at Waterworks. I hadn’t done anything in preparation for it."
   After Norrington completed the necessary paperwork, he reported to practice two weeks into the season and looked every bit like someone who’d just taken the last five years off from swimming.
   "I had no stamina," he recalled. "I just had a little technique. That first practice was very tough. I got out and just about collapsed. I just thought, ‘It’s got to get easier. I can’t get worse.’"
   By the week of his first Pirate Boys’ Invitational, Norrington was starting to see signs of his future. In one week, culminating at the Pirate as a sophomore, he knocked seven seconds off his 100 freestyle time.
   "And it still wasn’t a great time," he said. "By junior year, I was swimming three or four events each meet."
   The progress has continued in his senior season. Since those early days, it’s gotten much better for Norrington, who’s also a captain for the Knights, who were 7-2 going into Thursday’s scheduled meet with West Windsor-Plainsboro South.
   In helping WW-PN pick up its seventh win of the season, 89-81, over Notre Dame on Saturday, Norrington looked both the novice and the veteran. He hit rock bottom when he disqualified his 200 freestyle relay team that finished third, but was able to rebound quickly.
   "The meet was really, really close," Reca said. "He came back in the 100 back and swam out of his mind. He swam a personal best."
   The personal best in the very next event was good enough for the individual win and helped the Knights ease by Notre Dame. And it helped him forget quickly his feelings after the 200 free relay.
   "I’m sitting there thinking redemption," the 17-year-old said. "Swimming those events back to back isn’t that bad. It’s 50 yards, so it’s not that bad.
   "I think I dropped a little under a second converted. My best was 1:17 before and it was 1:16-something converted. Of course, everyone was like, ‘Good job’ when I got out. I didn’t feel too good when I got us DQ’d. It wasn’t a very good example."
   Otherwise, Norrington, who also finished fifth in the 200 free and swam a leg in the 400 free relay, has been a solid leader for the Knights, who are in good position to make the state tournament for the second straight season.
   "To be able to come out and contribute like he has is rarer," Reca said. "When they start out as freshmen, the goal is to score as many points as possible. He’s done well.
   "He’s a really good leader. He’s good at making sure the younger kids don’t mss events and organizing and helping set up and break down and things of that sort."
   Norrington, who also moves between right field and designated hitter for the Knights baseball team, is comfortable in a leadership position.
   "People look up to you," he said. "They treat you a little nicer. It’s a little more responsibility. You have to keep people under control."
   He’s happy to see that he’s keeping watch over a WW-PN boys’ team that is winning most of its battles in the pool. It’s even gone above what he was expecting in his final swimming season.
   "We’re doing a lot better than I anticipated," he said. "Since we lost so many key people last year, I didn’t think we’d do that well. But I guess that other teams lost a lot of good swimmers too, so we’ve done well. I’m extremely pleased."
   It’s been going well for Norrington, who is following his usual pattern of gradual improvement throughout the year. Seeing such changes is one of the positives to not swimming year-round.
   "I like doing it three months of the year," Norrington said. "When you come in, you’re swimming something ridiculous and then you drop 20 seconds by the end of the year. You come in a little pudgy and go out a little thinner."
   And in looking at where he’s come from, Norrington can see a big change from the gym class swimmer he was to the competitive Colonial Valley Conference contributor he’s become for the Knights.
   "I’d say I’ve improved a lot," he said. "They had to teach me how to do a flip-turn again and how to start off the blocks again when I started."
   Norrington’s rags to riches story is a subject every year at the WW-PN swim banquet. He’d like the main story, however, to be how the Knights advanced in the state tournament this season. The top eight Central Jersey Group III teams make the state tournament based on power point system that rewards the fastest overall schools.
   "I’m looking forward to it," Norrington said. "I hope we get in. I’d like to swim a few more meets."
   It would highlight what’s been quite a career for the senior, one that began in the most modest of ways as Norrington joined a first-year program.
   "She was just looking for anyone that could swim," he said.
   Now, the Knight boys are perched on a second straight state tournament berth, thanks in part to the contributions of Eric Norrington, a phys ed class success story.