Water Polo, Swimming
Favorite athlete: Missy Franklin
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: When I dropped 15 seconds in my 500 freestyle and finally got under six minutes in the event.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I have fallen on the pool deck way too many times to count!
Music on iPod: Taylor Swift
Future plans: Attend college and major in astrophysics
Words to live by: “No excuses. No limits. Make every day your masterpiece.”
One goal before turning 30: Compete in a triathlon.
One thing people don’t know about me: I went on a road trip to Mississippi last summer!
By Mary Jane Souder
Keri Salanik should be forgiven if she sometimes has her head in the stars, but with an interest in pursuing an astrophysics major at college next year, the Pennridge senior is – and has always been – interested in the celestial bodies.
“I’ve always just been really interested in the stars and sky,” Salanik said. “I took physics my sophomore year and last year I took AP Physics, and physics just clicked for me. I just really enjoyed those classes, and that’s when I realized I could do that for the rest of my life.”
With an interest in one day becoming an astronomer and working in research for either NASA or a private university, Salanik had to first find a school that offered her major. She has already been accepted at Villanova University, and Swarthmore is also a top choice.
Academics have always come first for Salanik, but the Pennridge senior, who has been swimming competitively since she was eight, wouldn’t mind having the opportunity to continue her swimming career at some level next year as well.
“When I first started out, I wasn’t really a big fan of it at all,” she said. “I was part of the Hatfield pool’s swim team, and when I first started, it was okay.
“I would swim at the practices, but I just kept on swimming because that’s what I’d always done. I never really had a reason for it until I got to high school and really started to love it and want to go to practices.”
So what changed?
“At the end of my sophomore year, I started distance swimming, and that’s when I really fell in love with swimming,” Salanik said. “Ever since then I’ve improved, and I love swimming so much more and more every year since then.
“I’ve also met so many great people through it.”
She describes distance swimming as “just relaxing.”
“There’s so much pressure and you have to do every single thing right in a 50 in order to win a race whereas in distance swimming you just have to settle in with your pace,” Salanik said. “I started relaxing.”
Salanik entered the scene at Pennridge when she joined the team as a freshman.
“I knew Keri swam for Hatfield’s summer aquatic team, but above and beyond that, I really didn’t know much other than the fact that her sister, Dana, who had gone to Lansdale Catholic, worked for me as part of our Pennridge Community Aquatics program, so I knew her as Dana’s little sister,” coach Ryan Griffiths said. “When she came in as a freshman, she came in with a group of girls that really jelled pretty soon on in their freshman year and now are a senior class that is really a tight-knit class.
“Keri is a very quiet individual. When she does speak, you kind of listen and need to hear what she says. She speaks few and far between, but when she does, it’s very profound.”
It’s not what Salanik says that has made her such a valued member of the team, nor is it what she’s accomplished in the pool. Rather, it’s her work ethic.
“She sets an example for those around her,” Griffiths said. “For example, right now we’re in a situation with our coaching staff and the day jobs of our staff that we as coaches aren’t around for our dry land weight room training.
“Keri’s one who knows what the workout is, knows where the tracking sheets are and gets to work. She’s one who will – on rare occasions – vent her frustration when other people aren’t working as hard as she is.”
With school on a two-week winter break, this is prime practice time for the team as it prepares for the second half of its season.
“She’s not one to argue or complain,” Griffiths said. “She really knows what we put in front of her is going to make her better, and she really pushes hard through everything we do.”
Salanik’s top event is the 500 freestyle.
“She also bounces back and forth between the 200 freestyle and 200 IM,” Griffiths said. “She’s one of those swimmers – when the lineup goes up on the wall, no matter what she’s in, she gives you her best effort.
“She embraces the team concept. We try and teach that even though swimming can be an individualized sport like track and other time-based sports – at the high school level, there’s a huge team component to it. She’s one that has bought into that concept and really does communicate with all of her teammates and really tries to include our incoming freshmen. All those types of things you can’t coach someone to do – she has those qualities.”
Last weekend, the Rams competed at the Bucknell Invitational. When Griffiths needed someone to help with videotaping the swims, he asked Salanik and teammate Erin Finley to assist.
“She really stepped up to help videotape all of her other teammates and helped me as I’m trying to make comments about the race, making sure they got on the videotape so when I go back to look at it, it’s there,” Griffiths said. “She could expend a lot of energy swimming the 500 free, but then she’s one of the first teammates at that meet and other meets to be cheering for the next person.”
Salanik tried other sports as she was growing up. She played soccer for nine years and also had a stint in track and field hockey. For the past two years, she was a member of the water polo team.
“Name a sport, and I’ve probably played it,” she said. “My parents have never been competitive and pushed us. They always just told us to do your best, make sure you’re trying hard.
“None of the sports I’ve played have ever really come easily for me, so I’ve always had to work really hard to be good at them. In swimming, I always have time goals for my races and things I want to improve on.
“So far I’ve been lucky enough to make most of my goals every time I set them, so I just keep raising the bar. I definitely have some times in the back of my head that I want to get by the end of the season.”
She admits it would be hard to give up swimming.
“I’ll probably end up doing it as a club sport or maybe at a D-III school, depending on where I’ll be going,” Salanik said.
A top-flight student, Salanik took three AP classes last year and is taking three more this year.
“Academics have always been a priority,” she said. “My parents have always stressed that grades come first before activities, and it’s always come first before any other thing.”
She admits her passion for science is not an interest that was fostered at home.
“My family is pretty much anti-science, anti-math,” she said with a laugh. “I’m kind of the odd one out with that one. I try and get them interested in it, and I’ll just throw out random facts in there, but most of the time it’s just me.”
Salanik is active in SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions), serving as vice president or the organization.
Outside of school, she is active in her church youth group. Salanik has worked at the Hatfield pool the past three years as a deck attendant and this past summer was the supervisor of the deck attendants. Next summer she is planning on being a lifeguard, all the while with her sights set on a career in the stars.
