Jody Smith, a Stanford swimmer from 1988-1991, approached the pool and watched in amazement.
The school’s masters team included adults of all ages competing non-professionally. They would often begin practice at 5 a.m., an hour before the collegiate team entered the water.
“I always said, ‘Those masters people are crazy. I am never going to be one of those,’” Smith said.
Oregon’s track and field assistant athletic director earned six All-American honors and a team national championship during her time at Stanford. She admired her collegiate accomplishments. However, she wanted more out of her time in Palo Alto.
“My college career was okay,” Smith said. “No matter how I had done in college, I would rather have been more successful.”
Tim Edmonds, an assistant coach while Smith was at Stanford, noticed that her desire to swim had dwindled.
“I think she went through a period late in her competitive career where swimming wasn’t quite as fun,” Edmonds said. “The meaning of swimming was less clear.”
After graduation, Smith figured that her swimming career was over.
“At that time, there just weren’t a lot of opportunities for a swimmer to continue,” Smith said.
Ten years after graduation in 2001, Edmonds, who now serves as the head coach of Stanford’s masters team, approached her with an interesting idea. He asked Smith if she wanted to join the team.
Smith might have made her decision before his sales pitch.
“I don’t know if I led Jody to the pool or if she led herself,” Edmonds said.
She accepted, saying that she wanted to compete in the national championships being held near Stanford that year. Competing in the 30-34 age group, she won the national championship in the 200 meter backstroke.
“She can just turn it on,” friend and fellow masters swimmer Heather Holland said. “Even if she hasn’t been training a lot, she knows how to race.”
Smith decided to continue swimming in masters, relishing the competition.
“I thought competing was just something you instinctively did,” Smith said. “But I found out the first time I got up and raced again that it’s not. It’s a muscle that needs to be trained just like anything else.”
In 2008, Smith was one year away from moving up to the 40-44 age group. She realized that she had the ability to break world records in her new division so she increased her training.
“I was more nervous than I expected to be,” Smith said of the weeks leading up to the events.
From August through December, Smith broke three world records in the 100 meter and 200 meter backstroke.
“To me, it’s still the time on the watch more than the place,” Smith said. “It’s fun to do something you know hasn’t been done.”
Smith continued to compete in masters swimming when she began her current job at Oregon in 2011.
“It is home for me,” Smith said. “After ten years away, it was just fun.”
Around the same time, she became the vice president of community services for US Masters Swimming.
“I said I’d never be one of those people,” Smith said. “And now I’m a board member of those people.”
Follow Jack Heffernan on Twitter @JHeffy13