At Suffield High School one sport you scarcely hear about is the boys swim team. You rarely hear about any swimmers from Suffield, and you never know when their meets are. The boy’s swim team not getting the recognition they deserve is a sad reality at Suffield. Suffield is a Co-Op with Enfield and Ellington and this year the team only has two swimmers from Suffield, Junior, Nathan Head, and, Freshman, Owen Kraiza. Suffield has had multiple swimmers come and go, but Nathan Head has stuck with the team through it all. 

Nathan is a Junior at Suffield High School and has been swimming for most of his life. Starting out on the USA team, the Windsor Water Rats, he gained an appreciation and love for the sport. Nathan was put into the sport by his parents who both swam as well. He didn’t know what joining Swim would entail but quickly grew to love the sport. He mainly specializes in distance events, but also never passes up a chance to put in the time to improve his breaststroke. He always strives to improve in his events and this is what makes him such a crucial part of the team. Although Nathan is the only veteran swimmer for Suffield he will be joined this year by freshman Owen Kraiza. Being a part of the team for three years, Nathan has witnessed a decline in Suffield swimmers throughout the years. 

The team switched from being a Suffield Co-Op to the Enfield Co-Op after the 2021-2022 season when Enfield managed to bring in more swimmers than Suffield, changing the name to Enfield. After the 2022-2023 season, the team lost their coach from Suffield, Kevin Mattia who had been coaching for over five years. The team acquired a new coach who teaches at Enfield, Kellie Oppenheimer, who coached until this year. While her plans were up in the air prior to the start of the season, she ultimately decided to stay and coach. After speaking with Suffield’s athletic director, Amy Muska, we noticed that Suffield has less to do with the Co-Op than we had originally thought. We emailed Muska to get clarification on who was coaching the swim team and her response included, “We no longer have a Wildcats swim team”, clarifying that we currently do not have a Suffield only swim team, but there was no further comments on whether that would change in the future. We asked Nathan if he had noticed the number of swimmers go down each year, and he said: “Those schools have also been getting fewer swimmers as the seasons go on”. Why has the number of swimmers decreased year by year? Do people know there is a swim team? What is happening to the sport? 

While interviewing Nathan he told us about how divided the team is. We haven’t heard anything about the separation that Ellington wanted from the Co-Op until now. Ellington can not be removed from the Co-Op to create their own team until they have 14 swimmers, which forced them to stay this year because they only have 9 swimmers. Ellington’s want to be separated has caused the team to be divided. While Enfield and Suffield practice at the Fermi pool in Enfield, Ellington stays in Ellington and practices separately. Coach Oppenheimer for Enfield has been trying to get in contact with the coach for Ellington but has so far been unsuccessful.

We asked Nathan how the team functions when more than half the team is practicing separately from the rest. We were confused about how relays would work if they weren’t able to practice together. Without Ellington’s nine swimmers, Enfield and Suffield combined only have 4. This no longer seems like a problem with the lack of swimmers but the lack of cooperation on Ellington’s end. Maybe if Ellington wanted to be their own team they would be working harder to bring attention to the Co-Op they are a part of. There are two towns, Enfield and Suffield, who are putting in the work to make the most of this season while they have no clue how their nine teammates are doing or how prepared they are. We wish Nathan and the boy’s swim team the best of luck going into this season and hope that these kinks can get worked out before their first meet on January 1st.