Sports: Swimming
Favorite athlete: Billie Jean King
Favorite team: Chicago (Cubs, Sox, Bears and Bulls) all the way!
Favorite memory competing in sports: My sophomore year swimming at North, when the team won the District meet
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I’ve been lucky and have had nothing too embarrassing. “Knock on wood”
Music on your iPod: My “Pump Up” playlist consists of dance music like Rihanna, LMFAO, Usher and Chris Brown. I also have rap by Jay-Z, Kanye West, Lil’ Wayne, Drake and Eminem. I mainly listen to music that I can dance to and have a good time with. However, I am a HUGE John Meyer and Dave Mathews fan!
Future plans: Go to college, get a degree and hopefully work in the sports industry, preferably a position somewhere at ESPN.
Words to live by: “Pressure is a privilege.” Billie Jean King
One goal before turning 30: Climb the tallest mountain of any country, anywhere in the world (not Everest quite yet).
One thing people don’t know about me: For five summers I went to a ranch camp (Teton Valley Ranch Camp) in Dubois, Wyoming, from the summer of sixth grade to the summer of 10th grade. I rode horses, went fishing and camping, climbed the Teton Mountains. It was an absolutely amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience and I am forever grateful.
Some look at injuries and illnesses as an excuse.
Rae-Claire Embree sees them as motivation.
The Council Rock North swimmer battled her way through strep throat, mononucleosis and tendinitis in her shoulder during her senior year. As a result, Embree missed pool time, was occasionally absent from school and participated in some practices where she was too weak to train properly.
Some might have seen those obstacles as reason enough to throw in the towel. Embree used them as incentive … because even if the early part of her senior season was filled with difficult days, the end of the season could still be loaded with success.
“I always had that in the back of my mind, pushing me,” Embree said. “If there was a tough set or if I wasn’t feeling well that day, I knew I needed to push through it. It’s my senior year, it’s my last chance, and I didn’t want to regret anything. I didn’t want to regret not pushing myself hard enough where my goals were out of reach.”
It was a long and often frustrating road back to health for Embree, who came down with a case of strep throat early in the season. Upon her return to the pool, Embree pushed herself too hard.
“I learned that the hard way,” she said. “I went back in hard and my body was worn down and that’s when I contracted mono.”
For three weeks, she dealt with the symptoms of mono. When she resumed practicing regularly, Embree and Rock North assistant coach Brittany Bott came up with a plan to help her work her way back to health properly. But for someone who prefers to aim high, taking small steps proved to be a trying and occasionally frustrating routine.
“Brittany and I made weekly goals, set practice goals, we’d have talks about how practice was going and how I felt,” Embree said. “She told me, ‘You have to take a step back, you have to take it slow and let your body recover.’ And if I would have gone hard right away I could have injured myself or gotten sick again. You really need to take the time to let your body get back into shape and rest properly because if you go full force, your body’s going to be worn out and it’s going to take longer to recover.
“It was difficult. I got very frustrated very easily because I wanted to push myself and my body just couldn’t keep up. It just wasn’t there. I had to take a step back and say, ‘I can’t push my body over the edge. If I want to make these times and these goals, I have to do what’s right for myself and my body. My goals will come if I do that.’”
That they did. As the championship season approached, Embree returned to form. Shrugging off the lingering tendinitis in her shoulder, she finished in second place in the 50 and 100 freestyle races and swam on the first-place 200 free relay squad as the Indians claimed the team title at the National Conference Championships.
“I wanted to take that extra step to not only catch up but to be where I needed to be to reach my goals,” she said. “Once I was healthy, I wanted to work my hardest, stay after practice to work on my starts and turns, doing the extra laps, going that extra mile, whatever it takes for me to reach the next step, to push myself beyond my limit a little bit.”
Her efforts did not go unnoticed by her coaches … or her teammates.
“She fought through everything, and she really peaked and blossomed at the end of the season at leagues and districts,” said North coach Ted Schueller. “And that’s taught the younger kids on the team.
“Watching what Rae-Claire did, seeing her battling from the beginning of the season, going through ups and downs, she’s a good example of learning how to deal with those things. She shows the kids about the mental toughness of pushing through that. It can be tough enough to deal with the sport alone, but she had the added toughness of getting through all those setbacks.”
Despite the time missed, Embree’s performances through the season and at SOLs allowed her to advance to the District One Championship meet for the third consecutive year.
“Every year she’s improved,” Schueller said. “This year, I think she performed way beyond even her expectations, and mine.”
Embree, who swam and played tennis as a youngster in her native Chicago, moved into the Council Rock School District three days before the first day of ninth grade. She played tennis as a freshman, then tried out for the swimming team in her sophomore year.
On many other teams in the league, Embree could have been the standout performer. On a team loaded with elite swimmers as Council Rock North is, Embree was counted upon to deliver depth points.
She admits that it can be difficult to accept such a role. But, just as she did with her illnesses, she has used her teammates as a way to push herself throughout her high school career.
“I am a very competitive person,” Embree said. “It did get frustrating at times. But I understand the raw talent that these girls have and how hard they work. It used to be frustrating to think, ‘I’m always going to be second-best,’ but the girls who are the second- and third- and fourth-place finishers, they help carry the team. They’re the support for the team.
“I see Tommie (Dillione) and Lauren (Mitchell) a body length or two ahead of me in practice or in a race and I tell myself I want to keep up with them, and I do. I definitely use that as motivation. When it’s a down day, ‘They’re faster than me,’ but on a good day, which is most of the time, I always try to push myself to keep up with them and swim at that level because I want to be just as good as them and work as hard as I can to prove myself.”
Her talent and her willingness to accept her role has made Embree an invaluable asset to the team the past three years.
“Rae-Claire has kind of been in the shadow of those elite-level kids every year she’s been on the team,” Schueller said. “But you’ll never hear her complain. It’s always, ‘Where you want me to go? Where do you need me?’ She is the consummate team person.
“Since I’ve been coaching at Council Rock, I’ve stressed that it’s always about the team. You can take every first place and still lose the meet. It’s the second and third people. The kids accept that and they know their abilities. Rae-Claire is one of those kids, especially when you get to league championships, where it’s not so much who’s going to win the league title, it’s taking those second and third spots.”
Embree is just as motivated in the classroom as she is in the pool. She is taking two Advanced classes and two Honors-level classes this year and is narrowing down her choice of colleges. She plans to swim (on a club team if she goes to a Division I school, or on the varsity team if she attends a Division III college) while she pursues a degree that will keep her involved with sports, possibly communications or journalism.
And when she graduates in three short months, Embree will leave behind a legacy of hard work and overcoming adversity in the pool that can serve to inspire those who watched her unwavering dedication to improving her abilities and helping the team in any way she could.
“Rae-Claire is a great example of having that constant determination, learning to deal with adversity and fighting through it,” Schueller said. “She’s a kid who’s learned to deal with it and not use it as an excuse. She’s a prime example of fighting through things, constantly working to get back to where she wants to be or get better.”
For Embree, the message she wants to leave for her younger teammates is very simple.
“No matter what holds you back, no matter if you see the glass as half-full or half-empty, you always have to push yourself harder and work harder and go that extra mile,” she said. “I hope they can see what I went through and how hard I worked to get back to where I wanted to be, and they can use that to know that whatever they’re dealing with, they can overcome it.”
