Riverside Brookfield High School’s swim and math team have had very successful seasons this past school year with both teams qualifying for state. Many students including junior Avi Ponnappan, junior Nathan Kissel, and senior Drew Rosa have had great success as both mathletes and swimmers.
Both teams have made a talented reputation for themselves. Although they are both successful in their own ways, they require quite different tasks from their members. They’re polar opposites in a sense, yet both provide different aspects of pleasure to these students.
“Math team we get to travel to a bunch of different places for the competitions and it’s cool to explore,” Ponnappan said.
The math team is a much more academic based extracurricular than the swim team is. This applies more to the students’ intellectual side and lets them work through rigorous problems while also experiencing different places with fellow RB students. While it is an extracurricular, it helps them with their actual day-to-day school work.
“So my favorite part is it helps me with my math classes, so it helps out with getting some extra practice in with math,” Rosa said.
While they’re doing this, they are also participating in the RB swim team. Swimming provides them a more physically challenging aspect, which has become another great passion of theirs.
“Swimming is just a way for me to disconnect from the world and bring a different part of my life,” Ponnappan said.
All three of these students have been on the swim team since their freshman year and have created a dedication with the sport. It’s an outlet for them, and they have put in a lot of effort into this sport.
“Before each competition I always go over what I need to do each thing and get in the mindset that brings focus,” Ponnappan said.
The two teams require them to focus on themselves at their individual tasks. The teammates have emphasized how focusing on their competition on either team can cause a distraction.
“Just focus and stuff. You just have to have really good focus at the task at hand for both,” Kissel said.
This focus truly helps them outside and inside their teams. For these members, balancing the two teams was not a difficulty whatsoever. Math team meets about once a week every Friday morning, and swim meets everyday after school for about two hours. Swim takes up most of their schedules, but it never seems to interfere with the math team. Although they are different, both teams have taught these students similar values.
“It’s really developed a lot of discipline in me and focus. Math team helped me connect with people in the school that I am not usually friends with,” Rosa said.
These teams have greatly allowed these students to expand their horizons and better themselves individually.
“Learning to focus, working with your team, and also being a strong individual because without your individual skills you can’t contribute to the team in the same way,” Kissel said.
