Butterfly’s her specialty

Victoria Eickerman is probably the best West Valley High School athlete you never heard of.

The senior currently is in Denton, Texas, on a recruiting visit to the Mean Green of the University of North Texas, having already visited the Wolfpack of the University of Nevada, Reno.

For Eickerman, a college scholarship is payoff for 11 years of hard work, often morning and night, in the swimming pool, where she specializes in the 200 butterfly, her sport’s most technically demanding stroke.

“I’m looking for a place where I will make a good fit,” Eickerman explained. “Some place where I’m not just a number in the classroom and on the swim team.”

In Spokane, competitive swimming is the equivalent of hiding a light under a bushel basket, although Eickerman is the third in a string of outstanding swimmers who have attended West Valley. Former Eagle Joe Covey graduated last year after a career swimming for Texas Christian University in Fort Worth while his sister, Rikki, is a current Horned Frog and last year’s Most Outstanding Swimmer.

Eickerman and Rikki Covey swam together when the former was a freshman.

“It’s too bad they didn’t have another couple swimmers to qualify as a team,” Spokane Area Swimming coach Todd Marsh said. “They would have placed pretty high as a team that year.”

Eickerman said she truly enjoyed representing her school in the state championship meet, but the daily grind needed to qualify for the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association event was daunting.

“We had to go out to Cheney a couple times a week to train with their swim team,” Eickerman explained. “I enjoyed the opportunity to represent my school, even though the high school meet wasn’t as demanding as some of the club meets we attend.”

Nor is the high-school workout schedule as demanding as the one Eickerman follows for Marsh and the SAS team: more than an hour in the pool at the Spokane Valley YMCA before school followed by a session at Shadle Park Pool from 3:30 until 6 p.m. every weekday.

“This is my 18th year coaching and I was a swimmer myself before that,” Marsh said. “Swimming is not the kind of sport you go into if you’re looking for a lot of recognition. Most of my kids are really good students who thrive on the challenge.

“I still consider swimming to be one of the last true sports. You get into it because you love it, not because you want to see your name in the newspaper. “

In fact, Eickerman said, most of her peers have no idea she spends so much time in the pool.

“Actually, I’m not always in the pool the whole time every afternoon,” Eickerman laughed. “A couple times a week I go out and run 3 miles before I swim so I can build up my stamina.”

Stamina is the key to swimming the 200 butterfly, a stroke in which swimmers keep both legs together in a dolphin kick while his or her arms are pulled underneath the body simultaneously to launch the swimmer forward in a diving motion, whipping the arms forward. A second, smaller kick is executed before the stroke is repeated.

“Butterfly takes a lot of finesse and a lot of technique,” Marsh explained. “If you ever get to watch Victoria swim, she has a beautiful butterfly stroke. The 200 butterfly is probably one of the hardest strokes because you have to have a lot of stamina.

“Usually to get a kid to swim the 200 fly it takes a lot of coercion from the coach. You have to find the right kid with the right mentality to stick with it.”

Eickerman fell into her specialty event four years ago. She wanted desperately to qualify for the YMCA National swim meet, but did not have a qualifying time.

“I remember I worked really hard on that event and went into a time trial, the last chance to qualify,” she said. “I had to swim that race three times before I posted a qualifying time.”

Today, Eickerman said, swim fans can tell her specialty just by looking at her.

“I have the typical body of a butterfly swimmer,” she laughed. “Big thighs and big shoulders.”

Eickerman also swims the individual medley and backstroke, but figures college programs will want her to specialize.

“For now, swimming other strokes helps,” she said. “But college coaches like to have their swimmers specialize in their best events.”