Swimming
Favorite athlete: Eric Shanteau
Favorite team: Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Sophomore year, the medley B relay was in the same heat at SOL’s as the A relay. A bunch of us were upset that we hadn’t been put in the A relay (me being one of them) and then we ended up beating the A relay and getting the district qualifying time!
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: One summer, when I was 11, I was swimming the 50 free, and they announced my name Lauren Sh*tcheck. My friends and I laughed about it for weeks.
Music on iPod: Adelle, Jessie J. Pitbull
Future Plans: Attend Penn State with a Major in Communication Disorders (Speech Pathology) and a minor in Vocal Performance
Words to live by: ‘If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.’ –John Quincy Adams
‘Tough times never last, but tough people do.’ –Robert Schuller
‘When your mind tells you, you can’t, your body reminds you that this is why you’ve been training.’
One goal before turning 30: Have my master’s
One thing people don’t know about me: I’m classically trained in vocal performance.
For a singer, Lauren Shevchek is one heck of a swimmer.
Fortunately for the Council Rock South senior, she’s found a way to combine the two passions in her life.
Because for the last two seasons, the classically trained vocalist sings the National Anthem prior to home swim meets.
“I get goose bumps any time I hear the National Anthem,” said South girls swimming coach Ken Brask. “When she sings it, I really get choked up.”
As natural as it may seem, Shevchek admits she initially had some reservations about performing before home meets.
“They asked me last year if I wanted to do it,” Shevchek said. “I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want people to think, ‘She’s not serious about swimming.’ But now it’s something I really enjoy doing and I look forward to it.”
And she’s found a way to remain focused on the meets that follow, which is crucial, since Shevchek drops the microphone and immediately dons her cap and goggles and gets ready to swim in the opening medley relay.
“For me, singing is something that’s very natural,” she said. “Does it break my focus? In a way, yes. But I swim maybe 45 seconds after singing, so I just have to come right out of that and refocus. If I sing well, it motivates me to swim well. ‘Ha ha, I’m a double threat!’”
She certainly is. Shevchek has already qualified for District Championships in the 100 butterfly, and her medley relay team is on the verge of securing a district qualifying time. She’s looking for all of her teammates to be happy with their best times and to bring a large contingent of Golden Hawk swimmers to Districts. For herself, breaking the one-minute mark in the 100 fly would be nice.
Brask has no doubt that when the pressure is on, Shevchek will be ready to meet that challenge, as well as any others she may face.
“Lauren’s a swimmer who really needs a good race to swim her best races,” he said. “As the season goes on, she works harder and harder, but it’s really the close races that get her going. She’s really good in the clutch. If we’re trailing in a relay and it’s her leg, everyone believes she can come back and pull off the impossible.”
But just as important as her efforts in the pool, are her contributions to the team out of the water. Brask points to her willingness to talk to younger swimmers one-on-one and recalls the time Shevchek without hesitation grabbed the lap counter for a freshman swimming the 500 freestyle.
“I haven’t seen that before,” Brask said. “Typically the swimmers will pick someone of their own age group, but Lauren jumped in and helped. She takes her job as captain very seriously. She’s checking the pulse of every swimmer on the team.”
Shevchek said that in a sport that can be as individualized as swimming, it’s crucial for captains to do all they can to help the younger team members.
“We tried to take initiative right away,” she said. “Me and the other captains, Jane (Gringolts) and Erin (Carlin), we met with the girls right away. Our jobs are to relay messages to the girls and be the leaders of the team, also relay messages from the team to the coach.
“There will be girls that come up to me, and I try to push them. You definitely get a lot more one-on-one, helping them through their problems. But we always talk to the girls before every meet, hype them up. We try to push the girls, but we always remind them, ‘If you don’t win a race or meet, go for your time, go for your personal record. It’s not about the girl next to you, it’s about your race.”
And while Shevchek is trying to instill life lessons as well as swimming lessons to the younger swimmers, she is taking lessons of her own out of her interactions with the team.
“Being allowed to help lead this group of amazing girls has really been a privilege for me,” she said. “Not only am I trying to help them, but they’ve also helped me grow.”
If Shevchek shows an exceptional affinity for her younger teammates, it makes sense. One of them lives in the same house as she does.
Her younger sister Erika is a freshman on the team this year. And while the older sister takes care to be a good role model, she also knows that the pool has added a new element to their kinship, and it’s something she takes advantage of when she needs to do so.
“We’ve raced against each other, which is interesting,” Shevchek said. “I want her to do well, but I want to win the race. I love the family competition there.
“Having Erika there is a blessing. I have someone who understands what I’m going through. My mom and dad played more team sports when they were younger. With Erika, she can understand what I’m going through and gives me advice that other people in my family can’t give me. And she’s very self-motivated, which is good, because her self-motivation helps me to motivate myself as well.”
And that’s important, because like many swimmers, Shevchek swims through pain. She developed tendinitis in her shoulders during her freshman season with the Golden Hawks, and her left rotator cuff has gotten worse through her high school years.
To combat the pain, there’s ice and heat. There’s lots of stretching. And there’s simply gritting your teeth and pushing aside the pain while in the water.
“I’ll stretch a lot, usually during diving,” said Shevchek, who has been swimming competitively since age five. “Diving can take 35, 40 minutes, so I’ll just stretch, loosen up.
“As a swimmer, it’s something you have to work through. I have to get through this, I have to push. The tendinitis actually helped me learn to push myself and motivate myself, because if I couldn’t motivate myself to swim through it, I wasn’t going to accomplish my goals.”
Shevchek brings that drive with her out of the pool as well. She takes three Advanced Placement classes, is a member of the Music Honor Society, National Honor Society, Students Against Destructive Decisions and Animal Rescue Club at school.
She is also involved in the high school’s Golden Wings Theatre Company as well as the community-based Newtown Arts Company. She has performed in school productions of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Frankenstein, A Midsummer Night’s Dream andZombie Prom, to name a few. In March, she will portray opera house prima donna Carlotta in Phantom of the Opera. And when she heads to Penn State University in the fall, she plans to minor in vocal performance (she’s currently undecided about her major but is leaning toward speech pathology) and get involved in an a cappella group.
Of course, the school musical falls right around the time of the end of swim season. It’s making for a busy couple of months for Shevchek.
“April will be a very nice month for me,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll finally get to sit around and relax and enjoy senior year.
“But I love this. These are my two passions. I couldn’t give up Phantom just because I do train classically for opera. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience to do this show.”
And though her various commitments sometimes overlap, she finds ways of making up for lost time. And besides, her coach knows that if she has to miss some practice time, it’s for a good reason.
“She actually had to miss a half-hour of practice on a Saturday because of her commitment with NHS,” Brask said. “And that’s fine. It’s not just about swimming – it’s about being all you can be. Whatever it is with Lauren – academics, sports, she’s just a natural leader and she plays her heart out, works her heart out.
“She’s 100 percent engaged in everything she does. She’s got a great voice, she’s a phenomenal leader, a phenomenal swimmer, a phenomenal young person.”
