LHS senior Michael Livecchi swims the 200 IM at a meet at West Windsor North on Jan. 14, 2014. (Staff photo by Samantha Sciarrotta.)
If it wasn’t for his brothers Tom and John Livecchi, Michael Livecchi may have ended up spending every summer scaling cliffs in the High Sierra and every Christmas break swooshing down the Swiss Alps.
Okay, that might be a stretch. He may, however, have forgone swimming and concentrated more on his other hobbies.
But Tom swam at Pennington and John swam at Lawrence High, so Michael watched and imitated.
“They were both huge role models to me,” Michael said. “If my brothers didn’t swim, I wouldn’t. I basically followed in their footsteps.”
Michael Livecchi is one of Lawrence’s top all-around swimmers as a senior, able to fill in at a lot of different events if need be. But swimming isn’t all he does.
Livecchi is also into rock climbing, which he does at a center in Hamilton Township, and into skiing, which he does in the Poconos. In fact, he navigates the Black Diamond slopes.
His hobbies don’t exactly make coach Mike Underwood comfortable, and obviously most coaches would feel the same way. But he doesn’t hold Livecchi back.
“Over Christmas break I went skiing and he actually said ‘Don’t get injured,’ and I fell and hurt myself,” Livecchi said. “It was kind of a shock to me, and kind of ironic, too. It was the first time he looked at us and said ‘Don’t hurt yourself.’ And I go out and hurt my thumb.”
He can still swim, however, which makes Underwood happy.
“Lawrence always prides itself on having a ton of a people who can do every stroke, and he definitely fits the mold,” the coach said. “If you ask him what he is, he would say he’s a distance freestyle. But this year we’ve used him in the IM, 100 back. He can literally do any stroke at any distance. It doesn’t matter.
“He’s one of the people you love having on the team. When you have an open spot and have an available swim left, he’s easy to put in there. He’s always been a distance freestyler. His other strokes have always been there, but we haven’t had the need to put him there, we had other people to kind of specialize. This year had some open spots from graduation and it only made sense to put Michael in those.”
Underwood is not just throwing in a body to fill out a lane when he inserts Livecchi. While he doesn’t get a ton of first-place finishes, he is a consistent point earner for the Cards, who won six of their first eight dual meets this year.
Unlike some high school swimmers who are unwilling to try new events, Livecchi embraces it.
“It’s been really good,” he said. “It’s a good opportunity to swim more events and experience more things. I can figure out what events I’m good at, especially if I go to college to swim.”
Livecchi’s career started at age 5 when he was on his first team. Like his brothers, his only club swimming was with Ben Franklin in PASDA competition.
“I’ve always wanted to do other things outside of swimming, even though it’s my biggest sport,” Livecchi said. “I didn’t want to take up too much time doing anything else besides PASDA. I did swim outside the high school season but I wanted to be able to do other things.”
Livecchi actually took three years off between ages eight and 11 because he was getting burned out, so it’s just as well he didn’t go into a high powered club environment.
“It takes a little bit out of you,” he said.
When Livecchi arrived at Lawrence, he was uncertain what events he wanted to swim. He was in relays so he focused on the sprints, but when a distance swimmer missed a meet due to illness, Livecchi was inserted.
“He put me in the 400 and I swam an OK time,” he said. “We were losing distance swimmers and I’ve been distance every since.”
His best times as of mid-January were 4:54 in the 400 and 2:20 in the 200. He has also been focusing on the backstroke this year, and has done the 200 IM a few times.
“When I ask him to do something new he always gives you this look of ‘Are you sure?’” Underwood said. “And I say ‘Yes I’m sure,’ and he’s always successful. He’ll say ‘Yeah, it wasn’t so bad.’ He takes it with a grain of salt. He’s always positive about it, so it’s understandable why they voted him captain [along with] Jack Hargraves-Dix.”
Livecchi has the added bonus of having his brother helping out, as Tom Livecchi is one of Underwood’s assistants.
“That’s interesting,” Michael Livecchi said. “He can tell me what I need to work on every day. I don’t have to be in the pool for him to tell me what to work on.”
Underwood couldn’t be happier to have Tom helping out. Tom also coaches the Lawrence Lightning and Pennington Aquatics.
“Tom was an excellent swimmer at Pennington, and he has always said he wishes that he had the experience at Lawrence also,” Underwood said. “He knew a lot of people at Lawrence, had a lot of friends. He’s got such a background in swimming, he’s dedicated a lot of his life to swimming. He knows a lot of swimmers anyway so I figured he would be a great assistant for us.
“The Livecchi boys have been very important to Lawrence High School. I definitely remember Tom at the county tournaments. He’d always say hello, was hanging out with Lawrence guys. He was just friends with them from the neighborhood.”
In comparing the brothers, Underwood feels that Michael is most similar to John.
“John could do all the strokes also,” the coach said. “John was more of a sprinter, where Michael definitely has the distance under his belt. But John and Michael are extremely competitive swimmers. They won’t use the word ‘lose’ because they never will. They’re the kind of people you want on your team.”
With Lawrence concentrating on its dual meet season, Underwood was unsure where Livecchi would compete in the counties, but the swimmer knows where he would like to be.
“I think I’m better at free than the others,” he said. “I just think my stroke is a lot cleaner on that than the breast or fly. I would really like to do the 400 again at counties so I can keep getting better at that. I wouldn’t mind trying the 200 IM again. I swam it last year and I think I can do better.
“I don’t really care where he puts me, though. It’s just an opportunity to swim.”
He hopes to have more opportunities after high school and is looking into Paul Smith College.
“It’s not the most competitive school, they only do a few meets a year,” he said. “But I’m deciding between environmental science and biology, and they have what I’m looking for.”
Not to mention, it’s located in the Adirondack Mountains, which sounds like a great place to ski and rock climb.
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