 "Photo: Lauren Tucker, Daily Texan Staff")
After helping to set a world record and winning a gold medal this summer in Beijing, it could easily be assumed that winning something as mundane as Big 12 Swimmer of the Week could slip off of junior swimmer Ricky Berens’ radar.
Usually no one even calls him to let him know about the award, and he finds out when the information gets posted online. This doesn’t mean that other swimmers on the team don’t let him know about it.
“Some of my teammates do give me a bit of a hard time about it,” Berens said. “But we get a lot of awards like this throughout the year, so everyone gets their turn.”
With the times he posted at last weekend’s meet in Ann Arbor, Mich., Berens will be happy to put up with some “make way for the Big 12 Swimmer of the Week” announcements in the locker room.
Berens won three individual events at the meet and was a part of three relays that all came in first place. What’s even more impressive is that all six of the times from those races are the fastest in collegiate swimming this year. Two of his times were good enough for provisional qualification to the NCAA championships, something rarely seen this early in the season.
After swimming in Beijing this summer, Berens took a three-and-a-half-week break from swimming. This might seem like a lot, but some competitors from the Olympics have still not gone back to training in the pool.
“They can take it easy right now, because their next main goal is … the next Olympics,” Berens said. “But the main goal this year for us is to win an NCAA championship, so I got right back in and switched my goals up.”
Berens has plenty of motivation to switch those goals. While he has had the honor of standing on top of the Olympic podium, he has yet to match that at the NCAA championship meet. He finished second in two events last year, and that motivates him every time he comes into practice. Coming in second is not good enough.
It’s important to have extra motivation in swim practice, where the monotony and repetitiveness can wear on a swimmer.
Texas coach Eddie Reese does all that he can to mix things up so that it’s not just “staring at the bottom of the pool for two hours.”
Berens revealed that it’s not just motivation that gets him through practice.
“You usually have a song stuck in your head, but you only know one line of it,” Berens said. “But you repeat that one line the entire time.”
Freshman diver Drew Livingston was also honored by the Big 12 this week, earning his first diver of the week honor. He won the one-meter springboard competition at the meet in Ann Arbor by 56 points, finished second in the three-meter springboard and third in the platform event — all in the first meet of his career.
Berens and Livingston return to the pool Nov. 21 when the Longhorns take on Washington at the Lee and Joe Jamail Swim Center.
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