LocalSportsJournal.com
Local Sports Journal is excited to name the nominees for the top swimmers at its Second Annual Varsity Blues Athletic Awards Show on Saturday in downtown Muskegon’s Frauenthal Theater.
The Rob Peel Swimming Award is set to be the first swimming award presentation of the unique evening. Tickets for admission into the theater can be purchased at the Frauenthal Box office or online by clicking here.
Celebrating the excellence of the “prep athlete” is something that is an honor for Local Sports Journal to have the opportunity to do.
High school swimming displays the deep cultural roots of outdoor sports along the incredible shoreline of Lake Michigan.
The LSJ staff has been talking to swimming coaches “in the know” to come up with the best nominations for this year’s top swimming award.
Here are the nominees for the Rob Peel Swimming Award:
Girls Nominees
Hannah Brown, Spring Lake
Madison Bearup, Ludington
Kayla Vanderlinde, Mona Shores
Claudia Busse, Grand Haven
Boys Nominees
Lucas Bradley, Fremont
Noah Fletcher, Spring Lake
Alex Strauss, Spring Lake
Landen Hall, Mona Shores
Oliver Holtgren, Manistee
We chose to name this award after Peel because he was the first area swimming to qualify for the Olympic Trial.
Rob Peel is the fastest swimmer in area history. And in the 1990s, he was among the fastest swimmers in the United States.
A Spring Lake High School and Hope College graduate, Peel made his biggest splash in swimming’s answer to the 100-yard dash in track — the 50-meter freestyle, a pressure-packed sprint down one length of the pool. Peel finished ninth in the 50 freestyle at the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials (22.97) and improved on that with a sixth-place finish at the 1996 Olympic Trials (22.80), when he was the second-oldest competitor in the event at 30 years old.
Peel accomplished that feat despite his very late start in the sport — starting in the pool only after getting cut from the Spring Lake varsity basketball team in 1981. He decided to try swimming, and he was a natural, going on to become Hope’s first men’s swimming national champion, winning the 50 freestyle at the 1987 Division III national championships. He finished his career at Hope as an 11-time All-American, became the only MIAA swimmer to capture the league’s 100 freestyle championship in four consecutive years, and earned All-MIAA honors in all four years of competition.
He still holds the Hope school records in the 50 freestyle (20.69) and 200 freestyle (1:40.66) — the longest-standing Hope swimming records. He was proud to represent Hope and Division III swimming in the three Olympic Trials, which featured almost exclusively Division I swimmers.
