SF senior finds success in swimming
McDONALD – Ryne Fromholzer didn’t start swimming because he used to hang out at the neighborhood pool.
Or because he was awestruck by Michael Phelps’ performance at the Beijing Games in 2008.
Not even close.
The South Fayette senior, who now holds three school records and has some of the fastest freestyle and individual medley times in the WPIAL this season, started swimming because his mom made him.
“My mom forced me to start swimming in seventh grade,” Fromholzer explained. “I used to play basketball, but my asthma started getting to be too much. My mom said, ‘You’re not just going to sit in the basement; you’re going to do something.’
“She said, ‘You have one year. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to do it again. If you do like it, you’re in it.’ I loved it.”
Too bad for the rest of the WPIAL.
Fromholzer has the second-best times in the 100- and 200-yard freestyle events, finishing the first in 50.69 seconds, the latter in 1:49.57.
He also has the third best 200 individual medley time (2:07.65) and anchors South Fayette’s top-seeded 400 freestyle relay team that has already clocked a WPIAL-best 3:28.70.
“I was very hesitant (at first) because I was forced into it,” Fromholzer said. “I thought, ‘OK, fine. I’ll just get this done with.’ By the end of seventh grade, I was thinking eighth grade can’t get here fast enough. I wanted to swim more.”
How far has Fromholzer come?
A fairly long way when you consider that the first time he swam the 200 freestyle, he tried to make it a 100, pleading with his coach, Matt Tucker, to be done halfway through.
You can probably guess Tucker’s response.
“I think he did stand up in the middle of it,” Tucker said, laughing. “He’s a little asthmatic, so he has a little bit of that. It scared him at first. It’s so funny because now he has the 200 freestyle record for the team.”
While Fromholzer didn’t have the lung capacity early on, he did have the body and natural stroke: long reach, smooth, efficient and controlled.
Pretty soon Fromholzer began to build stamina. He trained more. He pushed himself. And after awhile, he was unstoppable.
“I honestly have no clue,” Fromholzer said when asked to explain his sudden ascension in the sport. “The only thing I can think of is working my butt off in that pool. Working my butt off in the lifting room. And just the competitive spirit.
“Whenever I have a head-to-head meet, it’s like I hit another gear. I see another guy next to me and think, ‘I’m not going to let this guy beat me.’ I just hit that second gear and take off.”
Fromholzer, like all of South Fayette’s swimmers, endures an intense practice schedule: six days and roughly 20 miles a week, mornings and afternoons, wet and dry land.
Last year he joined the robotics club – he plans to swim at Edinboro and major in physics – but had to drop out this year because of his training schedule.
That work, Fromholzer hopes, will help him have a better showing at next month’s WPIAL meet, where he finished second in the 200 freestyle a season ago, fourth in the 500.
“He likes to work hard,” said Tucker, who’ll often enter Fromholzer in myriad events in order to give his lineup some added flexibility. “He’s very dedicated. He has gravitated toward the 500 and the 200 freestyle; he’s always liked them. Considering he didn’t start swimming until seventh grade, that’s probably a good thing.”
Less than five years after being thrown into the deep end of competitive swimming, Fromholzer is hooked, to the point where he works a part-time job as a lifeguard and also helps out with learn-to-swim programs from kids age 5 through fifth grade.
Asked to explain what the sport has meant to him, Fromzholzer – who’s not exactly lacking for enthusiasm – perks up, that second gear he referenced kicking in.
“It was a second start, pretty much,” Fromholzer said. “I was always that last kid picked in gym. Once I started swimming, after the first meet, everyone was like, ‘This kid’s something else.’ After that, I had a lot of regained confidence. I’ve made a ton of friends, both from South Fayette and at other schools. It just seemed that the more I swam, the better I felt about myself.”