Water Polo, Swimming
Favorite athlete: Brenda Villa
Favorite team: Steelers
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning states my junior year for water polo and winning swimming states this past season.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Singing in the showers after morning practices.
Music on iPod: Pitch PerfectSound Track and Pop music
Future plans: In the fall I plan on attending Saint Francis University where I will continue my swimming and water polo career, and major in Applied Mathematics.
Words to live by: “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” (Vince Lombardi)
One goal before turning 30: Travel out of the country.
One thing people don’t know about me: I love to bake cookies.
By GORDON GLANTZ
When your chosen sport is sport is swimming, you tend to become naturally obsessed with time.
The focus, from practice to practice and meet to meet, is gearing up to better your times until you reach your zenith by season’s end.
For Univest Featured Female Athlete of the Week Erin O’Neill, who has been in the water so much of her life that she may qualify as a mermaid from Atlantis as much as a standout student-athlete from North Penn’s storied swim program, that focus on the importance of time has extended outside of the pool.
When she recently decided to continue her career at St. Francis University for both swimming and water polo, joining Maiden teammate Aimee Baur, O’Neill knew it would be a challenge to be a two-sport collegiate athlete while handling a demanding major like applied mathematics.
But she sees it as a challenge she can handle as well as she does when asked to shadow the opposition’s best player on the state champion water polo team.
It’s about time, and conquering it.
“I’ve been doing it my whole life,” she said, reiterating that she “didn’t want to choose just one sport” at the collegiate level.
“With my time management skills, I felt like I could do it in college,” said O’Neill, who has worked in time with the school’s Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) club and also volunteering at her church.
The typical day for O’Neill follows a regiment where there is little wasted movement, let alone time.
“It is morning practice, go to school, then practice again, dinner, homework, in bed by 10 – and then get up and do it all over again,” said O’Neill, who added that being a serious student was something that “developed” in middle school when something “just clicked that you needed to work hard and get good grades in order to succeed.”
While the water polo and swimming seasons ended – both with the Maidens collecting state titles with O’Neill as a captain – she is still “trying to keep up” her regiment, at least until AP testing concludes next week.
Even then, she makes sure to be in the pool “every afternoon and some mornings.”
This comes as no surprise to her coaches.
“Erinis one of the most dedicated athletes we have had come through our aquatics program,” said water polo coach Katie Grunmeier. “Her dedication and determination to be the best is what has attributed to her accolades.”
Added swimming coach Matt Weiser: “Erin is an all-around awesome kid who was a captain for us this year and helped lead the team to the state championship. She’s a girl who leads by example in everything she does and had not one complaint in four years of swimming at North Penn.”
When O’Neill graduates in a matter of weeks, she will be the last of several O’Neills to contribute to the swimming program.
According to O’Neill, her mom, Noreen, is the ultimate landlubber and “cheerleader,” with “absolutely no swimming ability.” But her dad, Michael, swam and played water polo at North Penn. Older sisters -- Casey, 24, and Tess, 21-- were also in the water.
O’Neill joined the Towamencin Swim Team when she was “like five or six” and “started water polo at eight, following my sisters, because I thought it would fun.”
And the sport may be fun, but it has become serious business. She turned into one of the most celebrated players in the state.
“Erin was an offensive threat at any position in the pool,” said Grunmeier of O'Neill, who gave up soccer after eighth grade and softball after sixth. “I constantly matched Erin up against the other team’s best player and she successfully shut every player down. Erin was one of the finalists for MVP of the State and earned first-team all-state, all-league and all conference. And I believe she will be earning All- American status as well for her play this year.”
O’Neill sees herself as more of a leader by example – a self-label affirmed by both coaches. She admits that with the nature of water polo, being an intense team sport, she and co-captain Shannon Quinn felt compelled to fire up the troops.
“Before games, we just wanted to get them ready,” said O’Neill. “We would give them a speech and tell them to be aggressive and use our speed. We would remind them to do what we’ve done in practice, to remember the small things.”
Then, as a leader, she needed to back it up.
“I would play anywhere they needed me, pretty much,” said O’Neill. “It depended on what team we were playing. I was usually paired against their best player.”
She described this year’s state title, which was the team’s third in the last four years, as “super exciting” because the Maidens were the clear-cut “team to beat” going into the season.
Grunmeier stressed it was O’Neill’s leadership and will to win, as much as her skill, that made it a reality.
“Erinreally became a team leader this year in her role as a captain,” she said. “She is a true leader by example and easily sets the tone for the rest of the team at practice, in the weight room, and in games. She will be incredibly missed next year when she goes to Saint Francis to play water polo and swim.”
As fall turned to winter, O’Neill had to hone her leadership traits a bit. The last thing most swimmers need before a race is a pep talk. Still, what she brought to the table was leadership that cannot be quantified, according to Weiser.
“Her contributions as a leader and teammate will be sorely missed,” he said, pointing out that O’Neill was the only swimmer to make states all four years of her career. “Erin truly embodies what North Penn swimming stands for. She bleeds blue and a lot of our success this year can be attributed to her contributions and her leadership.”
While both Grunmeier and Weiser lament her departure, O’Neill turns to the future at St. Francis – the central Pennsylvania school she chose over Allegheny and Lebanon Valley – with enthusiasm.
She calls it a “coincidence” that she and Baur – the youngest of four sisters to swim for North Penn and also a Univest Featured Female Athlete of the Week – will continue to be teammates, but considers it an added bonus.
“I’m excited about us both being there,” she said. “It will be fun.”
She said she ultimately chose St. Francis from the good karma she got on the visit there.
“The people were just really nice and I like the coaches,” said O’Neill, adding that sitting in on a class helped seal the deal for her, adding “I just felt like it was the right place for me”
She and Baur will get a chance to christen the school’s water polo program as well. It will be part of the overall challenge for O’Neill, who is currently thinking about a career in statistics or actuary science.
“That’s going to be really cool,” said O’Neill, who is also following in the path of her sisters, who both played water polo at the next level (Casey at Oregon State and Tess at Washington and Jefferson College in western Pennsylvania). “By our fourth year, we should have a really awesome team.
“We’re just going to get in there, be aggressive and try to have fun.”
As she enters a period of transition, it is also a time for reflection for O’Neill. She knows a lot personal sacrifice – not to mention time management – helped her get to where she is now, but she also knows she did not make the journey alone.
“I definitely want to thank my coaches,” she said. “They pushed me a lot. They push you to be the best that you can be, and they have always been there to help with anything, even if it has nothing to do with swimming.
“I also want to thank my family and my teammates.”
