Jay McAree
Equinox Staff
“He is the golden fish, the golden fish that walked in the door,” is how Swimming and Diving Head Coach Jack Fabian described his national qualifying swimmer Drew Ledwith.
Ledwith, a junior here at Keene State College, is already a three-time All-American and this month he made qualifying times for the 500m free and the 1,650m free for nationals. Ledwith added, “I’m really excited I got it over with early in the season so I don’t have to worry about it later, and I can just focus on my meets.”
“We knew where he should be at this point in time and his season was built upon nationals,” Fabian said.Ledwith said of his variety in abilities, “I mainly just train distance freestyle and because of that, I have pretty good endurance and I can do any other events.” Despite the variety in the athleticism Ledwith displays every time he hits the pool his words aren’t enough to really drive the point home. Teammate and friend of Ledwith, Diana Pimer had her take on his accomplishments and the amount of events he is able to tame. “It is really amazing to qualify this early in the season,” Pimer said. “Doing what [Ledwith] does is extremely difficult. He’s very talented at every event, he’s very driven to perform at whatever [Fabian] puts him in. But to be able to do all these different events, you don’t see that very often – all four strokes, distance, and sprint, that’s incredible,” she said.
A key contribution to Ledwith’s success is help from his coach. Ledwith said he has known Fabian since his junior year of high school when he started getting serious about swimming.
“We spend probably around five hours a day together. We are always around each other and me and him have a really close relationship,” Ledwith said
Coach Fabian noted, “He is a real student of the sport.” Fabian also mentioned the importance of being able to coach a talent like Ledwith to the point where he is getting better.
“You have to know that level of swimming is a pretty high level and you have to coach at that level,” Fabian said. “He’s one of the best swimmers in the nation.”
Nothing about Ledwith’s routine is wildly unique, or outlandish, like some may think. He explained he normally gets in the pool and swims a 500m right before the race to get warmed up. He added he usually has a coffee on his way to the pool, so maybe that’s the secret. Either way, people around him seem amazed at the way he goes about his business. “There’s definitely something special about him,” Pimer said. “It’s not like you wake up one morning and you decide to do it. It is many years of working hard, and he just does it.”
Ledwith will be anticipating nationals in Shenandoah, Texas March 20-23, 2013. Needless to say, if Drew Ledwith is a fish, he has certainly proved his weight worth in gold.
Jay McAree can be contacted at
jmcaree@keene-equinox.com