Where the boys aren't: Jackson swimming continues to rise amid sinking trend in roster numbers
CANTON — .Jackson's Doug Nist jumped in the varsity coaching pool at a strange time, long enough ago to be accustomed to strange times.
This year's oddity is supervising a rare cluster of top boys swimmers at a time when boys aren't swarming to the pool.
"From my perspective, boys swimming is kind of in trouble," Nist said as the Polar Bears' season hits tournament phase. "There's not a lot of young boys picking up the sport. Prior to COVID it was pretty strong on both sides, but since COVID, we have a ton of girls, but boys? The numbers don't seem to be growing."
The progress of Jackson juniors Luke Vickers, Daniel Ham, Ezra Herring and Holden Nist has been glowing. They led the Polar Bears to the 2023 Federal League championship recently and used the Division I sectional meet Saturday to set up a run to state.
Nist knew about all of them years before they started getting their names in the paper as Polar Bear freshmen.His own swimming story goes way back.
'You should coach': Wife, daughter nudge Doug Nist back into the pool
Nist was a late 1980s high school star for the Massillon Tiger Sharks before working his way into a captain role with the West Virginia Mountaineers.
He drifted away from the water and was living in the Tuslaw district with his wife Cheryl and their three children.
"It was 11 years ago, and one of our daughters wanted to get into competitive swimming," he said. "My wife said, 'That's a great idea.' I said, 'It's not a great idea. You have no idea how much work it is.'"
Mrs. Nist gave her husband a follow-up idea: "You should coach."
Doug got back in the game.
He took over the youth swimming program at the Carol and Paul David YMCA in the heart of Jackson Township. As coach, he could monitor how his daughter was handling all that work, while offering other youngsters expertise accumulated in his younger days.
A first season at the David YMCA turned into a decade. Nist built a youth program that eventually included all three of his kids, among many others.
As the oldest sibling, Victoria, made her way through Jackson High School, Doug took another unexpected plunge, becoming head coach of the Polar Bears' boys and girls teams for the 2019-20 season.
The end of that season got really strange. The OHSAA squeezed in its 2020 state swim meet at Branin Natatorium as stories about COVID-19 began to multiply. The stories kept growing. OHSAA tournaments in wrestling and basketball were cancelled.
Nist's second year at the Jackson helm turned into a marathon exercise in COVID management. His fourth season has been much more normal. He can better focus on what he actually likes about the grind.
"There's quite a few on the team I've been coaching since the got into it into it as little kids," he said. "I met them when they were shorter than my waistline. Now I'm looking up to half of them because they're taller than I am.
"When I started, I thought I'd do it a couple years and then move on my merry way. Being around them 10 or 11 years now, I don't know what word you'd use? Strange? Surreal?"
Meanwhile, the 2023 high school postseason progresses with many coaches working through smaller boys rosters.
"It's been a successful year," second-year Hoover head coach Richard Vaughn said. "We have eight boys. It was good to see the boys pull off a surprise win against GlenOak, which has more boys than we do."
Jackson boys, Hoover girls swim to OHSAA sectional championships
All of the local Division I teams saw each other at sectionals, swimming at Branin Natatorium, where the state meet will be conducted in two weeks. The Canton sectional winners have to get through districts at Cleveland State to make the state meet.
Jackson's boys and Hoover's girls won the sectional team races. Green's veteran coach, Mike Lazor, says his Bulldogs have become a magical group, and that was reflected in their placing second among the 12 teams on both the boys and girls sides.
Ham and Vickers swam side by side in the same heat of the boys 200 individual medley, finishing in a virtual dead heat, three seconds faster than everyone else. Vickers later won the 100 breaststroke in a sectional-record 57.17.
They joined Herring and Chris Collins to post the fastest time in the 200 medley relay.
Ham edged Green junior Camden Doerrer 47.83-48.01 for the fastest time in the 100 free, after Doerrer churned out the top time in the 200 free.
Holden Nist advanced with the second-fastest times in both the 200 and 500 freestyles.
Lake junior Michael Blawas, GlenOak senior Jacob Harms and Green senior Caleb Carr were a close 1-2-3 in the 50 free.
Hoover junior Peter Helmuth ran away with the 100 backstroke.
The Green quartet of Carr, Seth McMillan, Riley Sumption and Doerrer put up the fastest time in the 200 free relay. Jackson closed the meet by edging Green in the 400 relay with the group of Nist, Herring, Vickers and Ham.
The girls sectional meet opened with a great race between Hoover and Green, swimming in Lanes 4 and 5 in Heat 2 of the medley relay. The Vikings' Halle Ellis, Anna Helmuth, Marie Lochridge and Amanda Fetsko edged the Bulldogs' Olivia Scheibelhoffer, Olivia Elgin, Sydney Peterson and Anne Shroyer 1:49.16-1:49.74.
Helmuth and Lochridge, Hoover freshmen, had the two fastest times in the 200 individual medley. Helmuth later closed her big day with the best time in the 100 breaststroke.
Federal League champion Hoover won the 200 free relay with the quartet of Fetsko, Ava Carosielli, Kate Baxter and Annabelle Nixon. Hoover also won the 400 free relay with Fetsko, Carosielli, Lochridge and Nixon.
Jackson sophomore Nina Shulik posted the best time in the 200 free by a three-second margin. Later, she was 11 seconds better than anyone else in the 500.
Another Jackson sophomore, Abra Manofsky, edged Hoover junior Kate Baxter 24.38-24.87 in the fast heat of the 50 free.
Green got the fastest times of the day in the 100 free, from Elgin, and the 100 butterfly, from Peterson.
Perry sophomore Sophie Baker took the 100 backstroke.
Reach Steve at steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com
On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Jackson boys, Hoover girls win OHSAA swimming sectionals
