Among the six varsity or club sports that Jack Ford has, or will, compete in, swimming is his least favorite.
And yet it is the one he has lasted the longest, and the one in which he has had the most success.
“I love all sports, and swimming is the hardest sport by far,” Ford said. “It’s so intense. It’s not like any sport I’ve ever done before. I’m used to running and stuff like that, but I never swam. When you can’t breathe in the water, that’s freaky. You’re using your whole body, arms and legs, everything.”
Ford has used them well this season.
Entering the Jan. 25 Colonial Valley Conference Championship Meet, the Nottingham Northstar had finished first six times and second once in his seven 50 freestyle races. Ford also added three firsts and a second in the 100 free and won the 100 fly and 500 free the one time he raced in those. As for relays, Ford was on seven winning teams and four that finished second.
Not bad for a guy who never swam club and did not start competitive swimming until his sophomore year.
Ford was ushered into the sport by his sister Audrey, a former Nottingham standout, and Northstars coach Brian Emerson, whom Jack enjoyed having as a freshman baseball coach.
“He was a skinny, lean, tall kid as a freshman,” Emerson said. “He played really well, played the outfield and first base. From there I made the connection and told him, ‘You gotta come out for the swim team.’”
Audrey had already been coaxing him to try it, and Emerson sealed the deal with his sales pitch.
“We were struggling with numbers,” the coach said. “The year he came out I graduated a big group of seniors, we were down to eight or nine guys. I was lucky enough to convince him and a few other baseball players to come out.
“The pitch to Jack was ‘You’re athletic, you’re a three-sport athlete and swimming is one of the best ways to stay in shape.’ It’s about equal to track in cardio, but the muscle groups you activate when you’re swimming you don’t really appreciate, but swimming helps them a lot.”
So Ford came out his sophomore year and in Nottingham’s first 50 freestyle of the year, he set the fastest mark on the team, including four-year swimmers.
“The kid never swam competitive before and in the first event of our first meet he set the high water mark,” Emerson said. “It was awesome.”
It was enough to convince Ford he made a good choice.
“I realized ‘Hey, maybe there’s some potential here,’” he said. “Originally I wasn’t giving 100 percent. I was doing it to hang out with my friends. So I realized I should put my all into it and maybe I’ll get better. It was a mental challenge, a physical challenge but I knew I could help out the team.”
Ford has been helping out all kinds of teams since arriving at Nottingham. In the fall he played soccer as a freshman and in the spring he played baseball as a freshman, golf for two years and this spring he will try out for lacrosse. He is also on Nottingham’s club volleyball team, and plans on joining The College of New Jersey’s club volleyball team next year.
The summer after his freshman year, Ford was introduced to golf and decided to try it at Nottingham. He enjoyed the sport and his teammates, but after two of his closest friends on the team graduated last year, he decided to try lacrosse this year. “If I get cut, I guess it’s back to golf,” he said with a laugh.
Emerson marvels at Ford’s willingness to attempt new sports.
“I told his dad, ‘Your son is an athlete first. He fits into any puzzle,’” the coach said. “He’s a multi-tool kind of kid and it works for him. He loves trying different things and he fits right in.”
Ford says there are other sports he enjoys more than swimming and calls it “a secondary sport.” But it’s the only one he has earned three letters with.
“I think it’s because of the coach,” Ford said. “I had him during baseball freshman year, and I loved the guy. And my teammates are another reason. I knew Ethan Wiebesiek from when I played little league at HTRBA and we got much closer during swim season. Mac Miller lives four feet behind me, I got super close with him. I wouldn’t stay if it wasn’t for Emerson and the people on the team.”
“And,” he added, “It’s a nice bonus that I’m winning.”
Growing up, Jack and Audrey would swim at their cousin’s house and enjoyed splashing around in the water. In fifth grade, they moved into a house with a pool. “We’d swim a lot, do basketball in the pool, practice my flips off the diving board,” Ford said. “It was just a fun thing I did on the side.”
With Audrey nudging him and Emerson convincing him that swimming would be beneficial, Jack finally made the jump.
As a sophomore he swam on a few winning relay teams while garnering two firsts and nine top-three finishes in the 100 free and seven top-three finishes in the 50 free. Last year he had two firsts and nine top-three finishes in the 50, a first and four top-threes in the 100 free and three firsts and two thirds in the 100 fly, which is not his favorite event.
“The fly was different,” Ford said. “It was a killer on your shoulders. I like the 50 butterfly, but the 100 butterfly is probably the second worst event behind the 500 free. It’s so long.”
Due to a health condition, Ford finds sprints most conducive to what he is physically able to handle.
“In my first meet, I did the 100 breast and got DQ’d and thought, ‘Maybe that’s not for me,’” he recalled. “I have exercise-induced asthma. At practice, I can’t go very long. That was a factor that pushed me toward sprints.
“I have an inhaler, I take two puffs before every meet and practice. That’s the best way to do it. It’s less now than when I was a little kid but it’s still there. It is a little scary. In a sprint I’m done quickly. If I’m swimming for a long time, that’s when it kicks in.”
No matter what the event, the thing that truly stands out in Ford is his dedication.
“I love his drive and his commitment,” Emerson said. “When he comes in he doesn’t make excuses, he doesn’t complain. He does what you ask him to do. He motivates his teammates and leads by example. It’s really the mental part of it that keeps him going. He has a never-say-die attitude that carries him.”
With Ford’s success, of course, comes the “what if” question. Unlike his sister, who swam for PASDA, what if Jack had done club swimming or even swam in ninth grade.
“I wonder if I did club swimming, or if I did it my freshman year,” he said. “In the back of my mind I always thought about what that would look like.”
So does Emerson.
“He never wanted to do club or come out his freshman year,” the coach said. “If he came out as a freshman and had one more year refining his mechanics and fundamentals, I think he would have way surpassed where he’s at now.
“But I’ve seen club swimming burn out a lot of kids and turn them away from the sport. Maybe that’s a silver lining that he never had that pressure put on him. All those hours in the pool get a little redundant if you’re not truly invested in it.”
Whatever Ford’s investment level in swimming is, he’s good at it. In picking his proudest moment, it came last year against Hamilton West when one of the Hornets butterflyers asked Emerson if Nottingham had anyone good in that event.
“Emerson said ‘No, not really,’” Ford recalled. “That was my second time swimming that race so we had no idea. I came out and beat him by one second. That was probably my best race.”
As for what he is proudest of overall, it is the progress he has made in his best event.
“I love swimming the 50 free because you have to be kind of perfect every single time to be good at it,” Ford said. “If you take too many strokes or breaths before the wall it slows you down significantly. Every second matters in the 50. It’s all about perfecting the craft. That’s what I like about it.”
With that kind of attitude, it’s no wonder Ford is able to play so many different sports. Whatever the challenge, he looks to be perfect at it.
Jack Ford has proved a quick study in swimming. (Photo by Rich Fisher.),
