Jacobi went from shy freshman to national record holder
By: Rich Fisher
Peddie School swim coach Greg Wriede has put a lot of names on the record board in his pool over the years, and every so often he can’t help but reserve a special smile for certain new entries.
That was the case last week, when Wriede added the name of Cranbury’s Amy Jacobi and her teammates under the 200 free relay. The quartet set the national record twice at LaSalle University’s Kirk Natatorium in the Eastern Interscholastic Swimming Championships Feb. 23-24.
The Peddie girls and boys both won team titles, the first time in 12 years they turned the trick together. And Jacobi played a big part in the girls effort with two individual third places along with her part in the relay.
It wasn’t always this way, which is what made Wriede smile so much.
"She’s one of the amazing success stories," the veteran coach said. "For a kid who came in here who wasn’t sure she was going to swim, who didn’t think she could be with this type of team, and to be where she’s come to, it’s just kind of remarkable. It actually taught me a lot about the drive and the will of the athlete overcoming everything else.
"She didn’t really know what it took to swim at this level her freshman year. She was always there, but not one of the leaders of the group right away. But she kept working hard for everything she was trying to do and over the past two years, she started to believe a little bit more that she was capable of something."
And in athletics, a little belief can go along way. It’s no secret than all the physical prowess in the world is no good without a good mental outlook.
"Once she got that belief, she started working unbelievably hard at making herself better and it just sky rocketed," Wriede said. "If somebody had sat there and told me this little eighth-grader that was sitting on the bench talking to me would be on the record board here, and would be doing all these things, I wouldn’t believe it. That’s why we joke about it, it still seems funny we’re putting her name on the board, but she deserves it."
Jacobi, who has made such great strides that she was a co-captain this year, chuckles when she recalls watching Wriede insert her name on the board.
"He started to work on fixing the record board," she said. "When he put up my name on the new pieces of wood he said ‘I kind of feel like I’m making a mistake.’ I said ‘Thanks a lot!’"
Perhaps, if anyone had seen Jacobi four years ago and not seen her since, they would be saying the same thing. She was anything but confident entering her 9th-grade year, and actually thought about giving up the sport before she ever left the Cranbury School.
As a softball and soccer player, Jacobi had an athletic niche. She swam club for Whitewaters in Princeton but decided to quit after her 7th-grade year. When one of her old coaches returned, she gave it one more year, but she was sure that would be it.
"When I got accepted at Peddie, I made the decision I wasn’t going to swim there because they were really good and really intense," Jacobi said. "It was scary. I was a little worried about it."
But in the summer before Jacobi’s freshman year, Cranbury resident and Peddie swimmer Julie Sicherman coerced her to meet with Wriede.
"I figured ‘OK, I’ll give it a shot,’" Jacobi said. "I figured the worst thing that would happen would be that I’d quit the team and go back to soccer and softball. Four years later, I’m still here."
And she is doing more than just filling out a lane, as witnessed by her outstanding effort at Easterns. The meet includes prep and parochial schools along the Eastern seaboard, and the competition is fierce.
Jacobi rose to the occasion her final year. She took third in the 100 freestyle with a personal best of 52.06, and took third in the 50 freestyle in 24.20, which was just off her pb of 24.06.
"I was kind of surprised with my 100 free a little bit," she said. "I knew I wanted to go a 52 in my race, but I didn’t think I would be so close to almost going a 51, so that was real exciting.
"I was a little disappointed I didn’t go a 23 in my 50. But you have to take what you can get in that kind of race. Anything can happen. Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes, not so much."
The individual finishes were by far Jacobi’s best in Easterns. Her previous highest finish was eighth.
But it was the relay that really had her excited.
"We actually broke the (national) record in the morning and broke our school record at the same time," she said. "But we all knew we could swim faster than we did at night. We really pulled together and went a half-second faster than in the morning."
Jacobi, who swam the second leg, had a pb 23:37 split in the night session, which helped the Falcons break the record set last November by the Bolles School of Florida at the Florida State 1A Championships.
"Amy made that 200 free relay for us," Wriede said. "She just dropped a huge split at night and kind of busted into the lead after that 50 and we never looked back. Our first leg, we were right on pace (with Germantown), and she just kind of catapulted off the block from her spot and obliterated the next girl.
"We were hoping for a little more on her 50, but she dropped 1.3 seconds in her 100, that’s a huge drop."
Jacobi’s exploits helped Peddie defeat the dreaded Germantown team, which had beaten the Falcons at every turn during her time in Hightstown.
"In four years, we’ve never beaten them in dual meets or at Easterns," Jacobi said. "The closest meet we ever had with Georgetown was my freshman year, so that was disappointing.
"The other co-captain (Annie Fittin) and I were a little bummed out about losing to Germantown by 30 in our dual meet this year. At the start of the season we made it a goal to beat them. Basically, after that meet, we got all the girls excited and told them that we actually outnumber Germantown now, and we can beat them in a bigger meet. Their team is more designed to win a dual meet against us."
The entire weekend marked an incredible climax to Jacobi’s high school career, which started with such uncertainty and blossomed into all that it could be. There are still several Peddie competitions remaining, including the sectionals at Harvard and the New Jersey Junior Olympics later this month. But both of them will be with the Peddie Aquatics Club, not the school.
Jacobi hopes to swim a 23.89 in the 50 and a 51.79 in the100 in those meets, which would give her national junior cut times and a chance to swim in the Junior Nationals in California.
After that, she hopes to swim in college, and is still waiting to hear from schools she applied to, which include Dennison (Ohio), Emery (Atlanta), Washington (St. Louis), Harvard and MIT (Michigan).
"She’s got the ability to be good in college," Wriede said. "She can make U.S. Nationals. Give her a little more time, a little more training, and if she keeps working for it, she’ll be under the top one percent of all the swimmers in the country."
No matter what Jacobi’s future holds, no one can ever take away what she has accomplished in the past four years. She not only made herself a better, more confident swimmer, but she made Wriede believe in something.
"The one thing that she taught me is, you really can’t underestimate people when they first come in," the coach said. "If someone can get a little bit of a dream and they have a personality and that spirit to kind of go after that dream, things are possible.
"Forrest Whittaker gave an acceptance speech at the Oscars, talking about being a kid from Texas, who had a dream about making movies and starring in movies. He had that dream and followed through, and good things happened. That’s the same kind of thing that can happen for Amy. She didn’t wish it to happen or hope it would happen, she went out there and made it happen."
And in doing a little soul searching, Jacobi would have to agree.
"I guess once you actually learn how to work hard, the hard work finally starts to pay off," said Jacobi, whose brother Steve is a freshman on the Falcons swim team. "I guess when I started out as a freshman, I was so worried about trying to fit in. Then I decided I didn’t really want to fit in. I was doing a lot of ‘not’ working hard. But when I started to swim fast I said ‘Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I really try?’ A couple of years later, I’m closing in on making Junior National cuts, which is something I never thought I’d be doing.
"It certainly has been a growing experience, going from the kid who wasn’t sure she wanted to even swim at Peddie to coming out as a captain and winding up on the school record board. Breaking a 12-year-old record was pretty exciting and almost unbelievable."
Almost.
But once Wriede put her name on that board, the belief was there for all the world to see.

