The whiteboard at the shallow end of Webster Pool keeps the countdown. It now reads: ‘1’ day to Big East. But the Syracuse swimming and diving teams don’t need a whiteboard to tell them their conference championship meet is upon them.

The Big East Championship starts today and runs through Saturday at the Nassau County Aquatic Center in Uniondale, N.Y. The meet is critical to the season because unlike many other sports, it completely decides the Big East winner.

‘I think the regular dual meets are there pretty much as a practice,’ senior Petra Zavadilova said. ‘It’s nothing compared to Big East.’

The swimming and diving teams competed in only three Big East dual meets this season. Head coach Lou Walker opted to have his team compete in more multi-day invitationals that mimic the format of the Big East Championship meet. Walker said this tactic has become common among college coaches.

‘I think we all figured out that it’s a good idea along the way to have some multi-event or multi-day or multi-session events so that becomes part of your season so when you get to the championship, it’s not the first time in six months that you’ve done that,’ Walker said of himself and other college coaches.

This year, the team competed in three multi-day events and four dual meets.

One way Walker differed from college coaches this season is in his training. Many college programs train their athletes so they peak in performance at two points: in a December invitational and at the conference championship meet. But when Walker looked at his young roster before the season started, he decided to place all the focus on the Big East Championship meet.

‘I took a look at what their times were versus what it would take to make it to the Big East conference,’ Walker said, ‘and simply made an assessment that our best opportunity to be at our best at the Big East meet this year would be to create a training plan that would lead us through to our first shave of the year being this week.’

The training leading up to the championship meet involves decreasing the duration and difficulty of practices until the day of the meet. After the last practice on Monday, the coaching staff handed out razors to each swimmer, which they use to shed body hair and reduce drag in the water.

Some athletes also wear different suits for championship meets. Zavadilova said that instead of a traditional swimsuit, this week she will wear a suit that extends all the way to her ankles and is made of material designed to glide through the water.

Though Walker looks after the training program of his young athletes, senior Luk Boral does his part to ensure they are ready for this week’s meet. Boral maintains that leadership plays a large role, particularly at the end of the season.

‘It’s important to show what to do and show a good model for others to go after,’ Boral said. ‘We used to say that one rotten apple spoils a whole basket of apples, so we want to have all healthy apples in our basket.’

Boral, a two-time Big East champion and three-time NCAA competitor, said that while his season will likely extend to the NCAA Championship meet, he still looks at the Big East Championship as the apex of his season.

‘Big East is the top event, the main weekend of the entire year,’ Boral said. ‘Obviously some people will say NCAA is bigger, it’s more prominent. But since in the last couple of years I went there by myself, I see the Big East as more of a team spirit meet and I’m looking forward to it as a team event.’

Published on February 12, 2007 at 12:00 pm