The Florida men’s and women’s swim teams are truly a united group.
That has been the case to so far in the fall season, as the men and women have competed successfully side by side in the All-Florida Invitational and against LSU.
But the teams will part ways for the next few days, as the women travel to Fayetteville for a meet against Arkansas today, and from there to Texas for the Dallas Classic, which takes place on Friday and Saturday. The men will remain in Gainesville to train.
The first test for the Gators women will be a Southeastern Conference meet against Arkansas. Florida coach Gregg Troy is excited to see how his team fares against the Razorbacks, whom he considers to be a solid team.
But what excites Troy most about the meet is that it is the squad’s first road test.
“We’re just looking to see how they respond to travel and get a little camaraderie,” Troy said. “We don’t have the men around this time, so the women leaders tend to stand up a little better.”
After today's meet, the Gators will send a smaller group of eight swimmers for a head-to-head meet against six other teams in the Dallas Classic. The event, which is hosted by SMU, will be centered on sprint races rather than distance ones.
That leaves Troy with the difficult task of deciding which group of eight to send. In selecting his swimmers, Troy said he will use versatility and experience as the determining factors, because the meet will force each to swim a variety of races, including some that many individuals won’t feel comfortable in.
What Troy considers the most important part of the weekend is that the women’s team gets to travel and compete separate from the men.
“We look for a place where we can get good competition, get them out on the road for a couple of days where they eat and travel together, I think it smooths out a lot of the edges,” he said.
While the women will be growing together on the road, the Florida men will be in Gainesville training, hoping to fill in some holes that still need to be filled. The biggest of these holes, according to Troy, is the backstroke, which he said the Gators “aren’t too competitive in at the moment.”
While the two teams have shown strength while competing together this year, Troy hopes that this weekend apart will make them even better.
