INDIANAPOLIS — It had been since 2007 (Cam Hobson) since a Crawfordsville boys swimmer did what Whitman Horton accomplished on Saturday for the Athenians. Horton capped off a record breaking season for the Athenians by swimming on the final day of the IHSAA Boys Swim Season at the State Finals. After the day was over, Horton can say he is a top 10 swimmer in the state in not one, but two events as he placed 6th overall in the backstroke with a time of 50.79 and won the consolations of the 200 IM with a lifetime best of 1:52.47.
Horton stood proudly on the podium to receive his medal as Crawfordsville coach Kevin Hedrick was all smiles for his stud swimmer.
“You hope that a day like he had is just a culmination of all of the hard work he’s put in,” Hedrick said. “He’s been locked in and had this goal in mind all year. When you can get through all of the adversity that comes through a season, we’ve just been blessed to be able to reap the rewards.”
With swimming not being a class sport, Horton was going up against the state’s best from the likes of Carmel, Zionsville, and most of the big schools. Crawfordsville compared to those giants, is considered a small school. Horton noted that how this experience of swimming alongside the state’s best will only make him and his CHS teammates better off.
“It felt great and it was just a happy moment,” he said. “Coach has had this goal in mind for a while now and to be able to do it for him was extra special. Those big schools provide a lot of great opportunities for us to see what goes into this sport and hopefully myself included along with the team can just learn from them to get better. I feel like the swimming community is just a nice big circle.”
Hedrick added that gong up against this competition that Horton did and doing as well as he did can be looked at by others as inspiration.
“With a little hard work and a lot of dedication to honing your craft this is where you can get and Whit is a shining example of that,” Hedrick said. “Winning against some of these giant schools is really tough to do and for him to be in the top 10 without the class system is pretty special and he is special guy.”
The best part for Horton? He has one more year to leave his mark. He’s already started thinking about the trip back to the IUPUI Natatorium next season and what he’ll have to do to make sure that happens.
“Doing the exact same things that I did this year, won’t yield the same results next year,” he said. “It’s a matter of constantly changing things. As happy as I was in the 100 back, to me it was an in-perfect race and I’ve already identified what I can do to get better. I’m excited for next year and to use all the lessons I’ve learned and put them together for my final year.”
Three of the five kids that placed higher than Horton in the backstroke were seniors and his time in the 200 IM was good enough for seventh, despite his ninth place finish as two of the swimmers in the finals had a slower time than him.
The sky is the limit for Horton and he’ll look to cap off his career with an even better senior season.
