 "Photo: Nick Bruce / DFP STAFF")
Somewhere lost in the dimension of time — let’s say two years ago — in the unknowingly mystical world that surrounds the Boston University men’s swimming team, the most emotion-stirring, animated member of the team, diver Greg Voloshin, felt it necessary to speak up.
While on the road, Voloshin gathered the team in one hotel room and spoke most directly to his fellow sophomore teammates at the time.
He said something to the effect of, “We have to go out and be ‘legends.’ We have to be good enough. We have to be remembered for something, for the program and for the team.”
It was a whole-hearted effort to instill a tradition — a tradition so corny that none of his teammates bothered to listen.
Two years later, however, six of Voloshin’s teammates who heard his motivational appeal that day took heed of it. Together, they comprised the senior class of a swimming program that had long been attached to a mediocre label.
As seniors, they saw an excuse. It was their last year. They had always been measured by opponents as short, overweight, hairy and simple to defeat.
All the more reason to embellish their standing.
So they stretched their egos. They ignored their long-lasting mark of being a “bad team with a good diver.” They played with sarcasm.
The seven senior members of the BU swim squad are self-proclaimed “Legends,” a title played off as a motto as much as it is a joke. Aside from Voloshin, the “Legends” go as follows: recruits Jason Ellow and Jason Walkow along with walk-ons Mike Mallick, Ben Hohmann, Jeremy Lisnoff and captain Shane Steele.
The seniors defined this year’s team like no other, enjoying a team unity that saw freshmen hang out with juniors and sophomores with seniors. In the pool, the senior Terriers provided the right pieces to get the first through fifth places necessary to win, relishing their best finish in six years with a 6-1 record.
“They were cohesive as a team and highly motivated,” says BU coach Reagh Wetmore, who started BU’s swimming program 30 years ago. “They went in [each meet] to win and there was no question about it.”
Most teams try to inspire unity on T-shirts with generic sayings like “Commitment to Excellence” and “The Tradition Continues.” Those fall under the feel-good high school category.
BU’s “Legends” took it a step further when Voloshin arranged to silk screen a silhouette image of the seven seniors on a shirt. Above the silhouettes, the shirts read “Legends” in red, oversized, bold print — and for good measure, it’s underlined.
The “Legends” motto ultimately fits its unorthodox and sometimes unpredictable personality as a team. In the locker room before each meet, the team bellows out its other so-called team motto of “Let Your Nuts Hang.”
It’s not the traditional “BU” or “Terriers” used by other varsity and club teams. And, no doubt, it’s rather graphic.
When the swimmers step out of the locker room to enter the pool arena, Ellow admits they let their egos fly.
“We’re cocky because everyone else is,” Ellow explains. “It’s jokingly cocky, though. It’s more of a slacker-type of cocky.”
After treating the opponent to a startling first impression, the Terriers strip from their warm-ups to their Speedos. There again, those in attendance are treated to a not-so-appealing aspect of the team’s character.
“We’re the only team with hair on our chests,” Hohmann says, sporting a scruffy complexion, likely the result of being more than a month into a never-ending offseason.
At the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament in February, Hohmann recalled seeing one team with swim caps, another with their heads shaven and BU standing in its lane for the relay without swim caps and “hair everywhere.”
“We’re kind of the blue-collar team of swimming,” Hohmann says. “We go out there, guts hanging out, hairy as hell, and we win.”
They won that relay at the ECACs as well.
Unfortunately, this year’s seniors can’t also take credit for the cocky image.
“The cockiness was instilled by upperclassmen that we had [the past three years].” Ellow says. “All of the other teams are huge, they’re jacked.”
The Terriers aren’t your customary swim team lineup. Whereas most of BU’s challengers reach average heights of 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-4, BU’s own seniors average 6-foot. Walkow stands tallest at 6-foot-4 and Voloshin packs in more muscle in his 5-foot-9 frame than three divers combined.
This season, BU didn’t always size up, but they matched up to each dual meet opponent better this year than any in recent memory.
In what was expected to be a close meet against Boston College, the Terriers blew the Eagles out of the water in BU’s last home performance. BU won first place in 13 of 16 events en route to a 166-127 onslaught.
Ellow notched a first-place finish in the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle; Walkow did the same in the 100-yard and 200-yard breastroke. Later, they combined to win the medley relay.
Earlier in the season, they traveled to Amherst where the Terriers were used to being handily disposed of by a stronger and heavily recruited University of Massachusetts, this year’s Atlantic-10 champions.
Not so this year. BU won the first three events of the meet, providing such a scare that the Minutemen were forced to use some of their top swimmers not scheduled to compete.
It proved BU’s only loss of the season, but by no means a major setback.
“The loss wasn’t that bad because [our swimmers] knew they were swimming super as a team,” Wetmore said.
The best — as the saying goes — came last. In its final meet of the regular season, on the road against an evenly matched University of Rhode Island squad, BU came back from 25 points behind with just three events remaining.
If ever a “Legends”-type of performance, this was it. Walkow and Lisnoff finished No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in both the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststroke. Walkow later combined with Ellow yet again to win the medley relay.
When the meet came down to Ellow needing a victory in the 200-yard individual medley, the Bethlehem, Pa. native came through, taking first place by half of a second.
Voloshin, who recorded his 50th career victory in the 1-meter diving events earlier in the meet, remembers someone yelling from the stands, “Legends!” BU won the meet 146-145.
“It was the best meet I’ve seen,” Wetmore says.
Through the regular season, the Terriers defeated three teams it had lost to the previous year, in which BU went 4-3 overall.
Two weeks later, in the America East conference meet, BU put a fitting, if partly frustrating end to its season as a team. The fitting end was a fourth-place overall finish in the league. The heartbreaker was knowing that a Terrier won only eight of 22 events.
Ellow put up a personal best 1:55.70 in the 200-yard individual medley and competed in three winning relays. The sure-fire Walkow won both breaststroke events, was on a winning relay and participated on another that placed second, the first place gaining 40 points for the team.
What haunted BU in the conference meet is exactly what has plagued BU the past few seasons: lack of depth.
“This is the first time in many years that we could put three guys in each event,” Wetmore explains. “You give up a point if you don’t have a third guy in there.”
There were 16 men on this season’s squad. Among the seniors, the lone diver Voloshin and the naturally talented Jasons occupied the strongholds. The other four — all walk-ons as freshmen — were the unsung performers who picked up crucial points that secured wins.
Mallick and Lisnoff did the point-scoring in the 100-yard breaststroke event. Mallick improved considerably through four years and according to Wetmore, “was just beginning to get into the scoring.”
Lisnoff’s two biggest outings were providing a rare 1-2 finish with Walkow against Rhode Island in both breaststroke events. Lisnoff earned a personal best in the 100-yard with 1:00.
Hohmann was the only distance swimmer of the seniors, competing mainly in the 500-yard and 5,000-yard events. He once competed in the 1,650-yard, saying, “I’m not sure of my time — somewhere around three weeks.”
“[Hohmann] could take on the top swimmer when we faced teams like the University of Vermont,” Wetmore says. “He had wins along the way.”
The last of the seniors is captain Steele, known primarily as a support swimmer who notched the second and third places. As a steady sprinter, it was no surprise to see him take part in at least two relays each meet along with his usual 50- and 100-yard freestyle events.
“I told them, ‘I don’t care if it’s a first, third or fifth, I want you to beat the man you’re supposed to,’ and they did,” Wetmore says. “I haven’t had that strong of a team in a long time.”
Now Wetmore is faced with the inevitable problem of watching them all go. He loses all three breaststrokers and his only diver, but he’ll miss the experience level most.
“The experience was great,” Wetmore says. “If they were equal to an underclassman, I’d put the senior in. They got to know how to swim their race.”
The seniors are only self-proclaimed “Legends.” With their careers done, the nickname gradually fades into an ongoing joke.
“It’s definitely comical,” Lisnoff says of being a member of the “Legends.” “It was great to lighten the mood, though. Us seven guys were able to step it up and inspire. And it taught me a lot of humility.”
“It’s motivational,” Mallick says. “It was a good goal to live up to. I think it was legendary because it was the first time that all the seniors hung out together with the freshmen, sophomores and juniors.”
“The aspect this year — if there’s one word to describe it — it’s emotional,” Voloshin says.
Voloshin loves it more than anyone. He cherishes the shirt. He smiles at the thought of a newfound label that will always be attached to their graduating class.
He, along with the other shaggy, short and underestimated seniors, take great pride in knowing they led one of the best swimming squads in BU’s history.
“This was the year for them to do well and they did,” Wetmore says.
“Legends” tend to do that.
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