For Lawrence High senior Erin Keane, the decision to give up cheerleading and focus fulltime on swimming wasn’t a tough one.
Getting dropped on the head can do that to a person.
“I used to cheerlead, but that ended in ninth grade because I got a bad concussion,” the Lawrence High senior said. “They threw me up in the air, I was like 10 feet up there, and they didn’t catch me. It didn’t knock me out, but I don’t really remember what happened. It was a very foggy time.
But they did apologize for not catching her, she added with a laugh.
It’s that kind of humor that endears Keane to Cardinals’ coach Mike Underwood and her teammates.
“She is a character,” Underwood said. “She’s got a very, very intelligent comedic sense about her. She’s one of our captains, she knows exactly when to put in a one-liner. It’s a one-liner that takes you a second to realize, and then you’re like, ‘That’s a brilliant thing she said. It’s so funny.’
“She’ll just have these moments and give you a crazy look and crack herself up about it and just walk away. She is hilarious.”
Fortunately for the Cardinals, Keane is serious about her swimming. She is not a superstar, but is one of those valuable contributors who collect those second-, third- and fourth-place points that are so important in dual meets.
Keane helped the Cardinals to a 6-2 start in duals, including a near-miss, 88-82 defeat to powerful West Windsor-Plainsboro South. She became a reluctant butterflyer as a freshman, but has managed to stick with it.
“As a freshman if you asked her about the butterfly, the word ‘hate’ might come out of her mouth,” Underwood said. “Now she won’t say she loves it, but she won’t say she hates it either.”
Keane agreed.
“I swam butterfly when I was in PASDA, and that was only 50 (instead of 100 yards). I thought that was pretty difficult and doubling that in high school made me really nervous.”
She has come a long way since then, as her career started as a diver on the Ben Franklin Swim Club.
“I just thought it looked pretty, so I started diving when I was really little,” she said. “You know, the logic of a kid.
“The swim coach for PASDA said I should be on the swim team. He was funny, I wanted a funny coach so I joined the swim team. I ended up quitting diving. I liked swimming because of the team aspect. They were really a close knit team and that’s what I liked.”
Keane decided that PASDA would be intense enough and did not pursue a high level club program. She did train with the Lawrence Lightning under Lynn Shields in the winter, and joined Pennington Aquatics in the fall of her freshman year “just to keep in shape.”
When she arrived at Lawrence, Keane had the skills to do a lot of events. Unfortunately for her, the one that Underwood needed filled was the one she didn’t like.
“We had an open spot in butterfly and she very reluctantly filled that spot for us and has kind of been there the last four years,” the coach said. “I don’t think she would ever tell you it’s her favorite stroke but she loves to compete, she always gives her best effort and always improves year after year, especially in butterfly.”
It’s a tribute to Keane’s team-first attitude that she took on the butterfly, despite her endurance fears.
“I’ve gotten used to it at this point,” she said. “I still don’t love it. It’s really hard. It gives me anxiety at times, so thinking about it is not a good thing for me.”
How does she deal with it?
“I just kind of think that I have to do it for the team,” Keane said. “If I’m in a position to do it, I trust (Underwood) as a coach that it’s the right place to be. I try not to think about it at this point. I just go out and do it.”
Underwood admitted that it’s sometimes a risk to ask a young swimmer to try an event they don’t care for, especially one as difficult as the fly. It could discourage them from the sport altogether. But he didn’t present it to Keane as “You must do this” but rather “Let’s see what happens.”
She tried it out at Underwood’s request. She didn’t love it, but she didn’t totally despise it, either.
“So we said, ‘If this wasn’t so bad, let’s make sure this was the slowest time you have in high school,’” Underwood said. “She kind of agreed to that and never looked back at that number. It’s an internal fire that says, ‘I don’t love this but I can help the team if I do this, and if I get better we as a team can get better.’ It’s the approach you want your kids to be having. She kind of sold herself on that.”
Keane’s first time was 1:28, and by her sophomore year she got it down to 1:18.
“That was a big thing for me,” she said. “I haven’t gotten it that low since, so that’s a little annoying.”
She has been around 1:21 most meets this year and feels she will go faster against tougher competition at the end of the year, noting “you gotta keep up with the herd.”
Keane also does some freestyle sprints and swims a few relays but the fly is her main event. Underwood feels she can come back on the second day of the Mercer County Tournament and enjoy a Top 12 finish in that event for the first time.
“I feel that way just from the way she’s been training,” Underwood said. “She was always dealing with shoulder injuries, this year the shoulder is very strong. She’s doing a lot of conditioning to keep herself healthy. A Top 12 is definitely in her grasp.”
If somehow she doesn’t get it, don’t expect any tears. Or even a frown.
“Personally I’m not that competitive against other people, I just want to drop times for myself,” Keane said. “It’s never a big thing for me to go to Final 12. It’s not really a burning thing if I don’t make it.”
Sounds like a kind of free spirit attitude, which would make sense since Keane is an artist. When she is not in the pool, she can be found standing behind an easel and creating things.
“I’m a painter, so that’s a big thing for me,” said Keane, who is also Senior Class Vice-President. “I’m applying to a lot of art schools, so that’s kind of a weird twist.”
She is currently involved in a portrait series for her art class, where the students must paint people from different cultures and show the different takes on how people look and their attire.
“I actually took a painting class my freshman year,” she said. “I was going to take culinary because my friends took it, but the class was full, so I kind of went from there. I draw and do collages but I really like painting.”
Keane said she is thinking about becoming an art teacher but is unsure yet. She knows this will be her last year of competitive swimming, and will look back on her years with the Cardinals in a special way.
“Just the friendships,” she said. “My team and I hung out mostly every weekend. We’re extremely close, a lot like a family. Without that I wouldn’t have had close relationships or anything that. I can’t even imagine school without swimming.”
Even if it did involve doing that pesky butterfly.
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