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The student news site of Clayton High School.

The Globe

The student news site of Clayton High School.

The Globe

Elizabeth Krane: Making Waves

Senior Elizabeth Krane is, without a doubt, one of the most talented student-athletes at Clayton High School.  Yet despite playing a Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA) sanctioned sport, she has never donned a Clayton uniform in her four years at the high school.  Instead, Krane has been competing at a national level with the Clayton-Shaw Park Tideriders (CSP) swim club.  An inability to negotiate a compromise with the athletic department and swim coaches has kept Krane off the girls’ swim team.

According to the MSHSAA Official Handbook, swimmers can participate on their club team and school team simultaneously, however, “priority shall be given to all school team practices and competition.” In the case of a conflict, the school practice should take priority, unless a school administrator grants an “exception to a student to participate in the non-school swimming and diving program if in direct conflict with the school program.”

Simply put, CHS girls’ swim coaches and the CHS athletic department has not offered Krane the exception she desired: to limit her participation at the Clayton team practices in favor of working out with her club.

Ever since her childhood, Elizabeth Krane has been a competitive swimmer on the Clayton Shaw Park Swim Team. (Peter Krane)
Ever since her childhood, Elizabeth Krane has been a competitive swimmer on the Clayton Shaw Park (CSP) Swim Team. (Peter Krane)

Krane has pursued the opportunity to swim for the Clayton team since freshman year.  She predicted a few bumps in the process, but expected to be swimming all four years.

“I had an idea there might be a little trouble working with the coaches but my parents and I thought that we could approach it with Mr. Bone and see if we could come up with another option,” Krane said.

Krane, Athletic Director Bob Bone and the swim coaches were not able to agree upon an option in her first three years at CHS. This year, however, Krane was optimistic when she met with Athletic Director Bob Bone and head girls’ swim coach Katelyn Long.

According to Krane, the committee of Long and Bone offered Krane the opportunity to swim for CHS given that she attend and fully participate in four practices each week.

Bone and Long could not comment on an situation of a specific individual. Long was able to describe the standard for girls’ swimming.

“Each team member is expected to be at every practice,” Long said. “Exceptions are made on an individual basis.  Sometimes there are circumstances that are out of our control, such as illness or injury.”

Bone also described the standard for Clayton athletics was that the expectation was for athletes to attend and fully participate in practice every day.

Krane said that she was willing to attend four Clayton practices each week granted that she would only swim and fully participate in two of them, staying on the pool deck for the other two practices.  The disappointment over the inability to come to a resolution with the coaches has been compounded by the fact that many of Krane’s club swimming friends, some of the state’s best high school swimmers, are allowed to swim by their respective high schools without fully participating in high school practice.

Krane’s current CSP schedule consists of ten practices weekly, including four weekday practices per week starting at 5:15 A.M.  A full one-seventh of her life in high school has been spent in the pool or preparing for practice.  If she had agreed to the four practices per week and continued CSP, she would be swimming for approximately 30 hours each week.

“My body could not handle that work and there would be risk for injury,” Krane said. “My parents say that school absolutely comes first, so I most likely would have to sacrifice club swimming in order to swim with CHS.”

However, another MSHSAA law could hinder the plan to attend two practices per week. At two practices a week, it would take at least seven weeks before an athlete could participate in competition.  According to Bone, “just attending a practice does not count, a person must be able to take part in the practice.”  Given this timeline, it would not be until early January when a swimmer could take part in competition.

According to Krane, the committee of Bone and Long said that giving Krane special privileges would separate her from the team and upset team members who might otherwise be on the relay team.  Krane acknowledged that she knew some swimmers were not supportive of her joining the team, however, she said that, for all intents and purposes, she would not be taking anyone’s spot.

“I would be willing to give up my spot on the state relay team, even if I helped that relay qualify for the state meet,” Krane said.

Two-year swim captain Julia Grasse recognizes that while there had been some opposition in the past, it “may be less this year” and that she was personally supportive of Krane joining the team.

“It motivates the entire team to see someone else succeed,” Grasse said.  “It would motivate the freshman to see someone making state times.”

Likewise, Krane hoped her role on the team would help others improve.

“I am not going to make the team good,” Krane said. “I am not going to say if they let me swim, they would have such a good team and all that.  But it might encourage some people to work harder.  I know swimmers who are going for a state cut, and simply by racing next to them, they will probably swim harder.”

Long and assistant coach David Kohmetscher were both high level Division 1 NCAA swimmers.  With sixteen state championships between the two, they have the credentials to develop a suitable workout plan for Krane and prepare her for national level swimming.  Bone pointed to the experience of the coaching staff as a nod to their knowledge of the sport.

With the Clayton Shaw Park Swim Team, Elizabeth Krane swims approximately 30 hours a week.
With the Clayton Shaw Park Swim Team, Elizabeth Krane swims approximately 30 hours a week. (Peter Krane)

Nonetheless, Krane’s concern was not over the Long’s ability to write up a workout plan, but that missing a substantial number of CSP practices would mean losing the daily “competition with other national level athletes.”

Few of the swimmers on the CHS team swim year-round.  MICDS girls’ coach Kristen Kaiser commented on the difference between a club and a swim team athlete.

“The thing that I believe gets lost in the equation, and that I tell my kids all the time, is that a club swimmer devotes 12 months a year to the sport of swimming,” Kaiser said.  “A high school swimmer devotes three months to the sport.  Both have their place, and one is not any better that the other but you are working with two vastly different categories of commitment.”

Both Long and Ladue boys’ coach Corey Miller agreed that a swimmer needed to swim year-round in order to compete at the top level.

CHS alum Gabby Inder, class of 2010, had personal experience with the difference between school and club swimming.  Inder competed for CHS sophomore and senior years, and club freshman and junior years.  She supported Krane’s claim that CSP offers a better opportunity to improve as a swimmer.

“While competing for CHS, I rarely attended CSP practices-maybe once a week at most,” Inder said. “In comparing my times for the seasons that I swam at CHS in comparison to the seasons which I swam for CSP, I swam much faster times in club.”

Long was a ten-time Missouri state champion, swimming for Marquette High School (Chesterfield).  On the verge of her tenth state championship, Long’s high school swim coach called her “the most versatile swimmer in the state.”

This begs the question of why a top athlete such as Long could swim for her high school, but Krane opts to choose club swimming.  It is important to note the differences between the two athletes.

According to the website for the Rockwood Swim Club, “Rockwood Swim Club is a program of Rockwood School District Community Education.” Long, who graduated from Marquette High School in the Rockwood School District in 2001, swam for the Rockwood Swim Club.  The Marquette swim coach, a former US National Team Coach, doubled as the head coach for the Rockwood Swim Club. Thus, because the swim club and team were closely connected and because she had the same coach for both high school and club swimming, it is complicated to compare situations of Long and Krane as stellar high school athletes.

MSHSAA recently changed its guidelines to allow swimmers to participate in both club and high school athletics cohesively.

Long and other former high school students either chose high school or club. Kaiser, a Ladue graduate, class of 2000, faced the choice of club or high school.

“When I swam, you had to pick one or the other and it was all or nothing,” Kaiser said.  “As a club swimmer, knowing that I wanted to continue after high school, I chose the club route.”

Krane plans to continue to swim in college, but regrets missing the opportunity to swim for a state title and experiencing the meaning of a team in high school.

“I have no idea what high school sports are about,” Krane said. “I really wanted to join because people talk about the camaraderie and that you get to meet people of different ages, get to know them better, and represent your school as a group.”

Kaiser agreed that this “camaraderie” was a strength of high school swimming, and that she regrets missing the experience.

Inder questioned whether an athlete could swim for a club and for the high school simultaneously and still join in on this “camaraderie.” In the case that the swimmer did not attend practice, Inder was not supportive of the swimmer being allowed to participate.

“I have friends at other schools, whose high school coaches do not require them to attend high school practices, and this practice means that these swimmers are not necessarily part of the ‘team,’ but are just the ‘stars,’” Inder said.

The coaches may try to make the decision in the best interest of the team, but inconsistency between different schools’ policy is not beneficial for the athletes.  As Inder mentioned, club swimmers at other high schools are able to compete with very limited participation.

“I was thrilled when they changed the rule,” Kaiser said of the MSHSAA law that allows swimmers to compete both in club and school, given certain restrictions.

MSHAA did in fact change their rulebook.  But in making the change, they caused confusion. The rule of how much a club swimmer needs to participate in order to to swim for his or her high school needs to be clarified.  It is not fair to the athletes, or to schools, to have such an open-ended bylaw.

“It is a very difficult issue to deal with as a high school coach,” Inder said.

It is an issue too difficult to deal with as a high school coach.  The state needs to draw the line.

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Elizabeth Krane: Making Waves