St. Charles East turns into good neighbors
When awards for "Good Neighbor of the Season" are handed out at the close of the boys swimming campaign, St. Charles East deserves some recognition.
With St. Charles North unable to use its pool due to pending repair work on a leaking pipe, the Saints were able to make more than the best of a rough situation for their North Stars brethren.
For the last two weeks, both the Saints and North Stars have trained at St. Charles East's Norris Center pool. With two eight-lane 25-yard practice pools available at the Norris Center, both Joe Cabel's Saints and Rob Rooney's North Stars have been able to train without taking space from the other.
"We're fortunate enough to have a facility with the lanes and the space where we haven't had to do anything with how our program has gone about its work in order to accommodate (Rooney) and his team," Cabel said.
Where some schools would have a problem having their crosstown rival sharing deck space, such is definitely not the case in St. Charles. The two schools' swimmers compete in the off-season for the St. Charles Swim Club and train together. Cabel and Rooney are both club team coaches with a long history of collaboration.
"We want them to do well too," Cabel said. "We want to make sure there's an opportunity for (Rooney) to do what he needs to do to get his team ready too. We have a philosophy where we don't want to let the rivalry get out of hand. There is a little bit of crosstown rivalry, but it's not nasty."
What is known about the pool at St. Charles North is that there is a leak, because the pool no longer holds water as it used to. But despite a series of tests to determine the location of the leak, no one will truly know the extent of the problem until the 285,000 gallons are drained, the pool bottom is excavated and repairs are begun.
"They've done pressure testing and they've done dye testing and they've done SONAR testing and camera testing to determine where the problems are," Rooney said. "My hat goes off to our facilities people for making it possible so that when the companies come in, pinpoint where the problems are and take care of things one at a time."
Draining the pool takes some time, however. This is not like pulling the plug on a bathtub. And when the work is done, refilling the pool takes time, as will heating all that water.
"The water is all going to flow somewhere," Rooney said. "They have to do some work in the (diving) pit first and get that done. Our facilities people, including (Assistant Superintendant of Operations) John Baird are doing all the necessary work to make sure it's done right."
St. Charles Swim Club practices have all been moved to the Norris Center while repair work is done, meaning the facility at St. Charles East will be busier than ever this spring. St. Charles North's pool is a busy place under normal circumstances. Not only is it home to the schools swimming and water polo teams, there pool also hosts gym classes.
"There is going to be some displacement, no doubt about it," Rooney said. "We've all tried to make this work for the kids. Our hope is they get in, get it done and we all get back to our own homes."
There was a benefit in that the North Stars were very familiar with the setup at St. Charles East before last Saturday's sectional meet.
"Knowing the lighting and where the bleachers are and how the water feels - when we do visualizations before competition, we talk about seeing the crowd and the building and yourself in that setting," Cabel said.
Still, all things being equal, Rooney would prefer his team to be preparing within walking distance of its own locker room.
"We'll do the best we can with what we have," Rooney said. "St. Charles East and St. Charles North will do the best we can so that the needs of the kids on our teams and the community have their needs met."
Depending the length of the repair work, the high school water polo schedules could be affected.
"It's just nice to be in your own home," Rooney said. "I know Central Administration is relying on us to get things sorted out among us so nothing has to happen that is forced on one school or the other. I don't see that happening. (Cabel) and I are pretty laid-back about this scenario and we'll see how it goes."
But fixing the problem is the important thing. Cabel said he has seen the bottom go out of a pool twice, and in neither instance was it a pleasant sight.
"I am glad that the district is going about this the right way," Rooney said. "They are not putting a Band-Aid on this. They will get this fixed properly, and that's what's important for the club swimmers, the PE kids who use our pool as well as our teams that compete there."