Power of positive thinking rules at St. Charles North

There are very few constants in sports, but one that never seems to change is the demand that a swim coach asks of his team.

At St. Charles North, the man asking his team to sacrifice is Rob Rooney - and one of those athletes taking up the challenge again this year is sophomore Chris Dieter.

But while the request for large yardage practices hasn't changed, the way Dieter responds internally to those challenges has altered significantly. This shift that explains why, though only a sophomore, Dieter is expected to be one of the leaders on deck for the North Stars as they embark on the 2009-10 season.

"In the middle of freshman year, we were practicing our butts off and I wasn't going the times I wanted and I got really angry," Dieter said. "I realized that it's better to swim with a positive attitude than a negative attitude. I'd been swimming really angry and I changed that. I completely changed my mentality on the sport."

Just how that manifest itself is perhaps hard to see. Dieter never asked to not swim a set, never shirked his responsibilities as a freshman. And he had by all definitions a very successful season. He qualified in the 200-yard freestyle and the 500 freestyle as well as on North Stars relays.

Although he failed to advance to the finals in the three events he swam in Friday's prelims last winter, he was inserted into the school's 200 medley relay on Saturday, and helped the team swim to an 11th-place finish. That finals swim makes Dieter the only returning scorer for the North Stars this year.

"He is young, but he is going to have to take on some of that leadership role," Rooney said.

And finding that role begins in practice, and here is where Dieter has already taken his new attitude into the water.

"We had a brutal set (recently), and instead of looking at it and saying 'oh man, I have 3 miles to swim before I can go home,'" Dieter said, "I looked at it and said 'it's a chance to get better and to improve my 200 time and my 500 time.' When you've got a positive attitude about what you're going to do, you realize that it's easier to this, and it is that way because you're glad to do it."

Dieter has gone as fast as 1:42 in the 200 freestyle, and Rooney said he could see Dieter perhaps getting to the 1:40 level.

"But to do that, you're talking about really being with the big boys, and I don't want to put that kind of pressure on him," Rooney said. "He had a good offseason and is ready to swim fast this year. Where that takes him, we'll find out between now and February."

Last year marked a shift for Dieter, as freshman year often proves for many athletes. After swimming with rivals who are all roughly the same age in club swimming, Dieter found himself facing swimmers sometimes four years older than he was.

At the same time, the North Stars had a large core of seniors on the roster last year, and so Dieter had to jump into the water with older, experience athletes on a daily basis.

"It surprised me at first that I was keeping up with them," Dieter said. "Being with my teammates helped shape my character. It helped me to get to state because I had to try physically to keep up with them. It helped me in ways they probably didn't know."

Getting that Saturday swim at the state finals didn't hurt either. Teams are allowed to make changes, moving one of two alternates into the final lineup between prelims and finals.

"Coach Rooney said the day of finals - that Saturday - that I was swimming," Dieter said. "I think he told me at 8 o'clock that morning that I'd be swimming in the finals of the state meet at New Trier. It was like nothing I've ever swam before."

Dieter started the relay by swimming the backstroke leg of the first event of the finals. Very often, the crowd hum following the national anthem has barely subsided when the 200 medley relay begins, so the atmosphere is as good as it gets in the meet. And there was Chris Dieter, proving he belonged in that aquatic crucible.

"I couldn't feel the coldness of the water, which is funny because that always hits me," Dieter said. "As hot as it is in the room, with all those people watching, I probably swam my lifetime best in the 50 freestyle. We got 11th, and for all the teams and all the relays in the state, I think that's pretty good."

Dieter has seen swimming from the inside. His sister Emily is a senior this year for the North Stars. Attending meets as a middle schooler gave Chris Dieter a chance to see how electric the atmosphere can be in a high school meet.

"I saw all the energy that was flowing through the team," Chris Dieter said. "It looked like so much mo energy was there than in club season. It made me want to me to high school even when I was in seventh grade. (Emily) really influenced me to want to keep swimming."

In swimming the 200 freestyle and the 500 freestyle, Dieter is swimming the longest events available in a high school swim meet. He is also swimming the events North Star grad and now Minnesota swimmer Chris Peterson made his own in his time in the North Stars program. A 2007 grad, Peterson left with the only three boys state titles in the school's decade-long swimming history.

"(Dieter) has some of those traits of a Chris Peterson ­- but I don't think I want to compare the two," Rooney said. "They are different people. But they both work hard."

The subject of leadership is something Dieter is willing to accept, but he doesn't feel it's a role that can just be awarded.

"There were a lot of good leaders last year who helped me build my character," Dieter said. "They showed me that leadership is something you build into. As the years go on and as you gain more experience, you gain more leadership and then you find that you are ready to be a leader. By going to the state and sectional meet and by supporting the boys at the conference meet and in our dual meets, it's a great start to being a leader. I'm not there, but I think that in my swimming career, I'll eventually get there."

Having been to the state finals, Dieter said he'd like to return. And he has his sites set higher than just being a participant in the opening day this year, though the grind of the season is all he can see at this moment.

"I think before I can look at state, we have to look as a team and as swimmers at the conference and then the sectional and all that leads to that," Dieter said. "That's what builds for the state meet. When taper season comes, that's when amazing things happen. Where I want to be is in the top 12 at state. I also want to be part of a relay in the top 12 at state."

And don't bet against it happening. He's got the right attitude about it already.