Date: Tue 13-Aug-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KIMH

Quick Words:

Cathy-Carney-Hall-Of-Fame

Full Text:

Cathy Carney - Hall of Fame Story for 1997

B Y K IM J. H ARMON

Cathy Carney may well be the best female swimmer Newtown High School has ever

seen.

I saw a swimmer last year, a freshman, who I thought I'd be saying that about

when she had graduated, but watching that freshman break one of Carney's 10

records - the 100 yard breaststroke - all I thought about was how could Carney

really was.

She joined the high school team as a freshman, but things apparently were

shaky in and out of the pool and the lack of camraderie she felt with the team

forced her to stay away for two years.

During that time, she swam with the Wilton Wahoos, a United States swim team

which was a two-time defending National YMCA champion. She started swimming

with them in the eighth grade and continued swimming throughout her high

school career.

Carney returned to - exploded onto might be a better turn of phrase, I think -

the team as a senior and all she did was to continuosly and laboriously update

the record board virtually week after week.

When the 1984 season was over, Carney owned 10 school or pool records and who

knows how many other pool records across the now defunct Western Connecticut

Conference.

That was a pretty good year not only for Carney, but for Newtown High as well.

The swimmers finished 8-4-1 and had a firm hold on the WCC championship before

a late-season slump chipped away at the team's 6-1 start.

Carney, meanwhile, was undefeated in every single individual event she entered

that year . . . until she reached the CIAC state meet. In the 200 freestyle,

Carney - a WCC champion in the 200 and 500 freestyles - finished second to

Kara Devlin of New Canaan. In the State Open, Carney finished second to Devlin

in both the 200 and 500 freestyles.

Carney and Devlin, incidentally, swam together for the Wahoos.

Carney still owns school records in the 100 freestyle (55.56), 200 freestyle

(1:55.30), 500 freestyle (5:06.40), 100 butterfly (1:00.24), and 200

individual medley and still owns pool records in the 200 individual medley

(2:17.50), 100 butterfly (1:00.24) and 500 free (5:18.16).

She owned the 100 breaststroke record of 1:11.87, which broke the 12-year-old

record of 1:13 set by Judi Scoles in 1972, but that record was rewritten on

October 28, 1995, by freshman Jamie Ryan.

The new mark is 1:11.11.

A couple other Carney records were challenged last year, when Newtown boasted

its best girls' swim team in more than a decade, and maybe I will see one or

two of those get chipped off the board at the conclusion of the 1996 season.

But that still won't erase the almost indelible image - the feeling - I have

of what it would have been like to watch Cathy Carney swim.