Historic achievement for Geneva's boys and girls of summer

Star-spangled Speedos, sunburns and the formerly chilly waters of the Geneva Park District's Sunset Pool have been on my mind lately.

That's because I recently spoke with Janice (Rempe) Clark, one of the coaches of the Geneva River Rats swim team. She'd reached out to inform me that the summer team we both used to swim for, and for whom she's been coaching the last 20 years, had recently won the summer league conference championship.

For the first time in the program's 44-year history.

OK, so maybe this news is not at quite the same mass-appeal level as, say, the Cubs winning the World Series for the first time since 1908. But for myself and probably thousands of other former River Rats and their families, it's certainly at the lifetime achievement level.

Geneva, you see, has a swimming history that is, how shall I say, challenging.

While the River Rats have always had great overall participation, the team has historically had a hard time keeping up with other programs simply because the town doesn't have an indoor pool in which swimmers can compete throughout the year. And that's a huge competitive disadvantage. While roughly half of this year's swimmers do participate in the River Rats' limited winter and spring clinics or compete with other clubs outside of the summer season, the other half of the roster is comprised of true summer-only swimmers, making all their gains in a tightly compressed seven-week span.

I know this part of the River Rats dynamic in a very personal way. My family moved to Geneva in the fall of 1972 and participated in some of the earliest versions of the program. Janice was helpful in refreshing my memory in many ways, including that she was a charter member on that first team in 1972.

Like Janice's family, the Gabriels regularly drove to BR Ryall YMCA in Glen Ellyn for our winter swim season, simply because at the time it was the best option for us. Eventually, my own clan moved to St. Charles and got in on the ground floor as swimming took off there thanks to the creation of the 50-meter indoor pool at the Norris Recreation Center.

Of course, much has evolved in Illinois swimming since the mid-70s. Sunset Pool, for instance, now has heated water, and the old wooden blocks of my youth were long ago upgraded. Dozens of fine new pools have been built in other nearby towns, and swimming as a sport continues to thrive in a big-picture sense.

But this much hasn't changed: Geneva's only pool for competitive swimming is still the one along Western Avenue.

Geneva High School does not have a pool. That's why Janice competed in high school for Rosary. She still lives in Geneva, and that's why her 10-year-old son, Dylan, swims for the West Chicago Sharks when he's not competing for the Rats.

All of this travel-to-swim stuff must seem excessive to any non-swimmer, but you land-based types will have to trust me on this part: If the sport takes hold of you, finding the right program becomes an organizing principle above trifles such as food, shelter and education. Which makes the River Rats' recent victory even more remarkable.

They succeeded for many reasons, notably the steady leadership of Chris Ranallo, who is also West Aurora High School's boys and girls swim coach. He's been with the River Rats for eight years, the last three as head coach. And he assembled an exceptional group of assistant coaches, including several who at one time were participants on the team.

The victory was especially resonant for my friend Janice. In addition to competing with the River Rats at a high level for 10 years in her youth, she has been coaching with the team for the last 20 years, focusing on the 9-10 age group for the last 18 seasons. And on this summer's team, her son Dylan was key member of the River Rats in that 9-10 age group.

In one sense, the team's conference win shouldn't be a complete surprise. The Rats had made steady gains in recent seasons, regularly finishing in second place in the top level of the two-tiered North Central Swim Conference (following the demise of the old Fox Valley Conference). And this year's team led by Ranallo finally broke through, thanks to a deeper-than-usual roster and strong scoring efforts at all age groups in the conference meet, hosted by DeKalb at Kishwaukee YMCA on July 16.

DeKalb had won the conference meet for 15 straight years. To extend the baseball analogy, they were like the '27 Yankees.

But this turned out to be the year of the underdog, and the River Rats celebrated with their end-of-season gathering at Wheeler Park, just a couple of blocks from my childhood home. Geneva's mayor, Kevin Burns, attended.

So I could not help but think about all the patient hard work that led to this moment. The names of the families from my era some 35 years ago - Bricher, Brock, Rasmussen, Frascona, Offutt, Hoelscher - came flooding back.

And, of course, the Krippners. My own best buddy Tim coached the team in his college years. So did his biggest brother Jim, while Danny and Larry also competed. And big sister Kathy ended up being the one who asked Janice to rejoin the team as a coach.

I'll always think of Sunset Pool as a kind of swimming equivalent to Wrigley Field - limited in certain ways, surely, but also oozing with charm. It's a pool perfectly suited to a true community swim team.

In the mid-'70s, star-spangled Speedo racing suits, in homage to the U.S. Olympic Team, were all the rage. I am reminded that after a full summer swim season sometime around 1976, certain portions of that pattern were transmitted through the fabric, straight into the pigment, via UV rays. The darker parts of the suit reflected less light, and given enough exposure, the sun tended to burn right through. You non-swimmers probably think I'm making this up. I know the rest of you are nodding.

Anyway, it's nice to know that, likewise, I helped leave a mark on River Rats swimming. Janice looked it up for me and it turns out I'm part of one of the most durable team records. The boys 9-10 200 freestyle relay of Doug Offutt, Tim Krippner, Sean Brock and myself still holds the mark, set in 1976.

I know we all had a blast that particular summer, and from my current vantage point I realize how much work it took to put it all together. I think what I remember best is the sense of togetherness we had - coaches, swimmers and parents pulling in the same direction. In summer league swimming especially, that's pretty much the whole point.

Still, everybody loves a winner. And on that note, congratulations to everybody associated with the remarkable current version of the River Rats.

No more wait 'til next year.

It came this summer.

• Aaron Gabriel is the Daily Herald's high school sports editor and regularly contributes reporting coverage of prep aquatics. After getting his feet wet in swimming with the Geneva River Rats, he excelled in the sport at St. Charles High School and the University of Wisconsin. He remains active as a coach and as an open-water swimming racer.