All-Area Boys Swimmer of the Year – Ben Long, Highland

Swimming is, almost by definition, a lonely pursuit — the 5 a.m. workouts, the long hours alone in the pool.

Heck, even in a race, the best strategy is to zone out your competitors. Act like they’re not even there.

Highland’s Ben Long knows this as well as anyone.

×

Story continues below video

For years, Long has been one of the hardest-working athletes in the area.

“The thing you have to realize is Ben swims twice a day year-round,” said John Twiss, one of his coaches. “It’s not like a lot of sports where you practice once a day. He’s swimming twice a day all year round, and he swims very intensely. He likes to get tired. I’ve been coaching 30 years, and there’s only been a handful of kids that like to work as hard as Ben does.”

Long’s put a lot of hard hours in at the pool. For years, that’s been his routine — wake up for an early-morning workout before school, go through his day, get back in the pool for another workout, then do it all again. And again. And again.

Perhaps that’s why, in a year when everything was disrupted, Long seemed as strong as ever. COVID shut things down, sure. But Long stuck to his routine — two-a-day workouts, year-round. He embraced the loneliness, the hard work, the fatigue. And he swum fast.

Long won 5A District 5/6 championships in the 200 individual medley and 500 freestyle.

Because of the virtual state championships that were held this year, he didn’t get a chance to improve on his times in the heat of competition against the best in the state.

But when times from all across the state were combined for the virtual state meet, his marks were still good for fifth place in the 200 IM and second in 500 free. His time of 5:03.74 in the latter was nearly 17 seconds ahead of the third-place finisher, and he scored 23 of the 27 points earned by individual Rams swimmers at state.