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Lauren Tompkins: The Lone Ranger on the Boys Swim Team

If you’re on a boys team, you better act like a boy. That’s the motto Lauren Tompkins has lived by throughout her entire swimming career. Tompkins, a junior at Woodland, is the only female on the Woodland Boys Swim team.

Up until high school, Tompkins had endless opportunities to play a variety of sports. But because high school sports are played in certain seasons that often times conflict with another, she was forced to choose between a new experience, volleyball, and a sport she had always been good at, swimming.

According to CIAC rules, girls can participate on a boys team if they play another sport during the girls season. The girls swimming season takes place in the fall as well as volleyball. With this rule in place, Tompkins decided that she would play volleyball in the fall and then swim during the winter season with the boys team.

“I wasn’t too sure if I would get along with the guys or if the coach would like me,” said Tompkins, “and plus my brother (Jimmy Tompkins)  was on the team so he didn’t really want me to.”

But since that deciding moment, Tompkins has learned to compete and, of course, deal with all of the boys.

Swimming the 100 back, the 200 medley, the 400 medley and the 400 free, Tompkins doesn’t have time to make mistakes. Since she is swimming with the boys who are naturally faster, she is forced to swim harder in order to compete with the boys.

“It’s a lot more difficult,” stated Tompkins, “but I like the challenge.”

With eleven other boys always surrounding her, her teammates and coaches continue to treat her as if she was just another boy. Her coach pushes her to her limits.

“For the boys team, it’s more of a challenge, my coach pushes me harder, the times are harder, the sets are harder, ” said Tompkins.

And although her coach physically and mentally pushes her to limits, her teammates love to push her emotional limits. After a while, they become oblivious to the fact that she is a girl. But since she has been on the team for three years, she’s learn to adjust and even love them.

“Even though I get a lot from them, we’re so close.” said Tompkins. “They’re like my second family.”

In order to succeed, she has to act like a boy. She can’t swim and stay on the team acting as if she were a girl. Girls teams are loud, they can cry, and they can get quite dramatic. And although she tries to remain as much of a boy as she can, her brotherly teammates added that she does bring some girly aspects to the pool.

“She creates a lot of enthusiasm for the team, she adds a different element and it makes it more fun and interesting,” said senior captain Patrick Dietz. “She’s really the only person who yells during practice to try to motivate us. It’s nice having her on the team.”