Current and Former Texas Longhorns Take on Summer League Coach’s Challenge

When you live in Austin, Texas, a very active town with a huge swimming base, you can expect that any given citizen is probably a better dwimmer than one might expect from the population as a whole.

And with the influence of the legendary University of Texas swimming program, when you start looking around deck at summer league meets, there’s always a legend or two floating around in some capacity (including, at one point in his life, our own Gold Medal Mel, who is a former Austin-area ‘swim dad’).

So when Austin summer leagues host “coaches’ relays,” sometimes they serve as more than just a sideshow.

Above, Steve Navarro, a coach of the Lake Hills Splashers, shares a video of last night’s coaches’ relays. Some of the names you might recognize in this relay include 5-time NCAA Champion, 27-time NCAA All-American, 1996 Olympic medalist Whitney Hedgepeth; former NCAA qualifier Alison Soelter; former Texas swimmer Ben Anderson; Texas commit and 2015 high school state champion Mason Tenney; and 2015 NCAA Champion in the 200 breaststroke and 400 IM Will Licon. We’re told that another NCAA Champion, Joseph Schooling, was scheduled to participate, but had something come up at the last moment.

That’s a really impressive field, although it shows in some regard how much training matters in swimming – on a pure-speed 25, these world-class swimmers didn’t look as dominant as one might expect.

Good fun was had by all, and there was a free relay as well, but nobody filmed that one as some illegal bodysuits may have been in play.