Swimmers have balanced approach to college

Peddie grads look for academic and athletic success

By: Bob Nuse
  While at the Peddie School, West Windsor residents Josh Charnin-Aker and Peter Park enjoyed the balance between academics and athletics.
   Now, as the pair conclude a successful summer of swimming and prepare to move on to college, they’ve each found what they hope to be a similar situation.
   Charnin-Aker will be heading to Stanford University in a couple of weeks, while Park begins at Northwestern University. Both hope to have the same kind of athletic and academic success they enjoyed in high school.
   ”I’m really excited,” Charnin-Aker said. “Stanford was second at the NCAA last year. So they’re a top team and to be able to train with that group of guys is going to really help me. Training with a team like Stanford is going to be a big commitment.
   ”Being at Peddie really helped a lot to prepare me. One of the main reasons I came to Peddie was because it was one of the few schools with the academics and the swimming that I was looking for. Actually, Peddie and Stanford are very similar in that way. It was one of the factors in my wanting to go to Stanford.”
   At Stanford, Charnin-Aker will be joining one of the top swim programs in the nation as well as one of the top academic schools. He concluded his pre-college swimming with a strong performance at the recent Junior Nationals in Indianapolis, where he posted an Olympic Trials qualifying time of 2:06.81 in the 200-meter individual medley.
   He came close to qualifying for the Olympic Trials in two other events, but was just short in the 200 butterfly and 400 IM. He also swam well in relays with Peddie teammates Park, Derek Chiu and Bryce Hillman.
   ”That was the goal going into the summer, to get at least one of those Olympic Trials cuts,” Charnin-Aker said. “It came down to my last event in the last meet of the summer, but I did it. I had just missed on the 200 fly (by .22) and the 400 IM (by one second), so that was kind of a letdown. But I was not expecting to make those. It all came down to one more race.
   ”Greg Wriede, my coach at Peddie, really wanted one of his swimmers to get an Olympic Trials cut. Derek Chui had missed one by .08 and Peter was close. When I got it, it was a huge relief. You only get the chance to do this once every four years, so getting it out of the way now was nice.”
   Park didn’t get an Olympic Trials cut this time around, but will have more opportunities in the spring. Like Charnin-Aker, he found a college similar to his high school that will give him a nice balance of sports and studies.
   ”That’s the best thing about Northwestern, they have a great balance between academics and athletics,” Park said. “This past year the team finished in the top eight at the NCAA meet. It’s a smaller team, there are only about 20-25 guys. It’s a lot like Peddie where it’s a smaller team and everyone knows each other well.”
   Park finished 13th in the 400 free and 18th in the 200 butterfly at the Junior Nationals. He still has the spring season to make an Olympic Trials cut, as do his other former Peddie teammates.
   ”We’ll still have plenty of chances,” said Charnin-Aker, who is part of a recruiting class at Stanford that was ranked No. 1 in the nation by collegeswimming.com. “I’m sure Derek and Peter will both have times by then to qualify. The college season is just short course, so there are no opportunities to qualify. But once the college season is over, the long course season starts and there will be meets in the spring after the college season.”
   The former teammates would love to get back together at the Olympic Trials, which will be held in Omaha, Neb., from June 30-July 7, 2008. They’ll get a chance to find out how that first year in college went and see just how much swimming with some of the top competitors in the country helps their progress.
   ”A lot of times once the Peddie seniors graduate they all head home or head their own way,” Park said. “But I was impressed this year to see some of the seniors stay together and see what we could do this summer. Josh, Bryce Hillman (who will attend Georgetown), Derek (who will attend Harvard) and I all stayed around and worked out together this summer. We had a very tight team this year that got along really well.
   ”I think that’s what helped us achieve high school success. We won the Eastern Championship and the team really came together and had a successful season. Our whole team got along well.”
   Both Charnin-Aker and Park will now get the chance to get to know their new teammates and get acclimated to their new facilities. At Stanford, Charnin-Aker will swim in one of the top facilities in the nation.
   ”They only have outdoor pools,” said Charnin-Aker, who was the fourth highest male point scorer at the Super Sectional meet held in Maryland earlier this summer. “They have two 50-meter pools and a 25-yard pool and they’re all outside. They’ve told me it does get a little cold. The guys on the team said there was a day when they went into the pool in the morning and it was 29 degrees. But the pool is heated, so it was OK.”
   Both Charnin-Aker and Park were active in a number of student activities while at Peddie. Charnin-Aker was editor of the school paper and also involved with student government. He’d like to continue to be involved at Stanford, but knows his time will be limited.
   ”I don’t know how much time I’ll have,” he said. “At Peddie, I was fortunate to be able to do a lot of different things in addition to swimming, like the paper and student government.”
   Both Charnin-Aker and Park seem to have found the right college niche. And they’ll head there after completing successful high school careers together.