One Hit Wonders

Did a search on the name. Pat Hogan knows a thing or two about waiting it out. In 1996, a swimmer he coached at the Mecklenburg Aquatic Club in North Carolina, Jilen Siroky, made the U.S. Olympic team in the 200m breaststroke as a 14-year-old. Though she continued to swim through college, she never got within three seconds of the time she did in the final of 1996 Olympic Trials. This is not uncommon for girls whose bodies change dramatically in their early teens. Siroky’s started to change immediately after the Olympics. “She wasn’t the same swimmer,” recalls Hogan, USA Swimming’s managing director for club development. A change in stroke technique didn’t work, though emphasis on other strokes helped, allowing Siroky to experience once again the joy of improvement. However, she never achieved the level of accomplishment that she did in 1996. And yet, as Hogan says, “I was as proud of her the years after the Olympics as I was when she made the Olympics. As hard as she worked going into 1996, it was no different in ’97 and ’98. She struggled, but that’s one of the great things about our sport. When you are not improving, you begin to question, ‘Why am I doing this?’ You learn to struggle, and that’s good for kids. They learn a lot. You can’t enjoy the peaks unless you go through the valleys.”

Did a search on the name. Pat Hogan knows a thing or two about waiting it out. In 1996, a swimmer he coached at the Mecklenburg Aquatic Club in North Carolina, Jilen Siroky, made the U.S. Olympic team in the 200m breaststroke as a 14-year-old. Though she continued to swim through college, she never got within three seconds of the time she did in the final of 1996 Olympic Trials. This is not uncommon for girls whose bodies change dramatically in their early teens. Siroky’s started to change immediately after the Olympics. “She wasn’t the same swimmer,” recalls Hogan, USA Swimming’s managing director for club development. A change in stroke technique didn’t work, though emphasis on other strokes helped, allowing Siroky to experience once again the joy of improvement. However, she never achieved the level of accomplishment that she did in 1996. And yet, as Hogan says, “I was as proud of her the years after the Olympics as I was when she made the Olympics. As hard as she worked going into 1996, it was no different in ’97 and ’98. She struggled, but that’s one of the great things about our sport. When you are not improving, you begin to question, ‘Why am I doing this?’ You learn to struggle, and that’s good for kids. They learn a lot. You can’t enjoy the peaks unless you go through the valleys.”