The Big Lake swim/dive team enters the 2020 season with 44 participants — 37 are swimmers and seven are divers.

Head Coach DaNae Mitchell is entering her third season at the helm for the swimmers and Paige Bouma is the diving coach.  They have two assistants in Wendi Draack and Nick Mitchell as well as two managers in Lexi Daniels and Maddie Washkuhn.

Due to the coronavirus situation, no fans are allowed in the building for any of the upcoming swim meets.

“I think one of the hardest things to see our athletes go through is not having any spectators,” said Mitchell.  “We try our best to live stream the meets but it’s not the same.”

Because of COVID-19, the team now has to have a limited number of athletes on the pool deck, allowing for social distancing.

“So at most pools we aren’t able to bring the full roster and because of the limited capacity, diving has their meet first before swimming starts theirs,” she says. “Usually diving would be in the middle of the meet so the divers would be able to cheer on the swimmers and vice versa.”

Mitchell is an Elk River alum and holds the 400 free relay record with her teammates.

“I swam all through high school, state trips in the freestyle events. This would be my third year coaching Big Lake, but I’ve been a USA Swimming coach for a local club for the past 12 years, coaching all ages.”

She was asked why she devotes so much of her free time to teaching youths the sport.

“Sharing the sport I love with them (her current squad), knowing that the hard work, positive mentality and responsibility will have an effect on them and that will give them life long skills, is the reason,” she says.

Coaching the kids proper swimming skills is a challenge as well as diving. Mitchell believes the breaststroke is the most difficult to grasp.

“It is a complicated stroke with lots of different moving parts and takes lots of patience to be efficient at it,” she says.

Mitchell takes her role as head coach seriously and she expects her student-athletes to take their roles seriously as well.

“Our overall goal is to win meets and improve individually but if there isn’t effort in practice or work ethic that I know has been better, I wouldn’t place (athletes) on the varsity lineup or any JV events,” Mitchell said. “I want them to feel that it’s a position that needs to be earned on hard work and not just skills alone.”

What is the future of swimming and diving at Big Lake High School?

“I’ve noticed in the last couple years that even with having seniors graduate and leave, our numbers have stayed about the same,” Mitchell says. “It’s been great seeing the new seventh and eighth graders come through.”