Our winningest team ever: synchronized swimming
Moving as one, these athletes make it look easy. Don’t be fooled. They put in monumental work to become champions.
While audience members enjoy the artistry, synchronized swimmers are powering through their routines with incredible precision and sheer strength. Here, from left, Hannah Heffernan, Emma Spott and Emily Armstrong perform at regionals in February. (Photo from The Ohio State University)
When prospective students tour the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion as part of a look at Ohio State’s amenities, the guides often mention the university’s winningest athletic team.
It’s not the squad playing in the enormous football stadium nearby. It’s the synchronized swimming team, which has won 34 national championships.
Overhearing the tour guides share this accomplishment is a cherished memory for Natalie Gaylard ’14, who won multiple titles with the team. At other schools, you might have to explain what synchronized swimming involves, she notes. But here? Not so much.
In a timeline of the sport’s history, USA Artistic Swimming’s entry for 1977 reads: “Intercollegiate National Championships are held for the first time. … Ohio State University wins all events.”
Since then, the Buckeyes have made it their practice to do that frequently. To put their dominance into context, teams not wearing scarlet and gray have only won a combined 13 national titles, with the team’s biggest rival, Stanford, grabbing most of those.
“I feel very supported here,” says head coach Holly Vargo-Brown ’84, who has been with the program in some capacity throughout most of its history. She started as a swimmer in the 1980s, served for 17 years as an assistant coach, and has been head coach for the past 12 seasons, winning seven national titles.
“People assume that it’s easy, because we have to make it look easy,” Vargo-Brown says. But behind those coordinated routines of four minutes or so lie many hours of training.
Watching synchronized swimmers move together can call to mind a school of fish, cutting through the water with grace and individual swimmers occasionally leaping out in high arcs like dolphins. They’re often dancing upside down, legs moving in intricate choreography. It’s a lot like a competitive cheer routine, but with the added challenge of water.
Team changes name to “artistic swimming”
The Department of Athletics has announced the synchronized swimming program will now compete under the name of artistic swimming. The name change aligns with the sport’s rebrand on both the national and international levels.
Many people don’t realize the swimmers do the whole routine without touching the bottom of the pool, notes Victoria Carlson ’24, who swam with the team for five seasons.
The training is demanding. Gaylard recalls hitting the weight room at 6:30 a.m. three days a week, plus running, stretching and, of course, spending hours each day in the pool. It’s a regimen that requires up to 20 hours a week, with even more practice when other students are away on break.
Gaylard calls the performance experience “nothing but straight intensity,” with legs flying and swimmers sometimes colliding underwater. “You’re thinking about a million things,” she says, and milliseconds matter.
Team members can develop an almost eerie sense of what’s going on around them. Gaylard recalls nose clips coming off and teammates passing a spare underwater while continuing their routine. “There’s no time for that, but somehow, it can work.”
Carlson appreciates the many facets of the sport. “I love that it’s creative, and it kind of combines strength and grace and flexibility,” she says.
Along with the high expectations that come with any Ohio State varsity sport, the team’s remarkable accomplishments can result in pressure, Vargo-Brown acknowledges.
“We’re expected to have excellence, and I completely buy into that,” she notes. But she emphasizes to her athletes that the journey is important, as are the strong personal connections team members build. When alumni visit, they don’t mention the championships as much as the shared experiences, she says.
“We are bonded through such unique experiences and hard training days,” Carlson says. She recalls enjoying long bus rides to meets and trekking across a deserted campus to the pool when classmates got a snow day.
The swimmers also note the skills they gained outside the pool. Gaylard says she didn’t know until after college how a national championship would translate to the job market. “Employers see what you did, and they know what you had to do every day.”
Of course, they’re all fierce competitors — and, don’t get them wrong, winning is hugely rewarding, too. A national title, Gaylard says, means “everything you did paid off.”
Today’s team members are very much aware of the legacy, Carlson says, recognizing the championship teams that came before them and hoping to pass on that culture.
“We have the motto, ‘Respect the past, defend the present, protect the future.’”
