By RICHIE HALL
Noblesville High School and the Noblesville Swim Club both have a new head swimming coach, but don’t expect many changes to the Millers program.
That’s because Aleks Fansler, the new head coach, worked closely with recently retired coach Rich Wolfred. Fansler intends to keep the methods and philosophies of Wolfred in place as he takes over the NSC and the Millers’ high school program.
“When given the opportuntiy to come to Noblesville in the first place, being able to work with Rich and learn from Rich was a huge nugget to get me here,” said Fansler. “He’s done an amazing job of creating a steady and consistent and strong culture.”
Fansler is going into his fourth year with the club and the high school. Before that, Fansler said he “was on a coaching tour of the United States.” He had a brief stint coaching in Cleveland, and also coached at SwimMac, a successful club in Charlotte, N.C. Fansler is a Fort Wayne native, having graduated from Northrop High School, then from IPFW (now Purdue Fort Wayne) in 2011.
Now he’s in Noblesville, ready to carry on the tradition of success there. He had a great mentor in Wolfred, who spent 16 years coaching at the swim club and NHS. Fansler said he and Wolfred have talked about elevating the club, as well as keeping the history and the camaraderie of it in place.
“That’s something very important for me to keep around and keep strong,” said Fansler. He said Wolfred is still a contact and a good friend.
“In a way, he’s going to continue to influence the program,” said Fansler. “That’s unique also.”
One of the things Fansler wants to continue is to inspire leaders, or swimmers that want to be leaders. The way to do that, he said, is to give those swimmers the tools to be good leaders. As for performance in the pool, Fansler said it’s “looking for that next edge,” whether it be making changes to a stroke or finding that next bit of speed. “That’s a fun puzzle to figure out,” he said.
“I’m excited for our boys team,” said Fansler. “Our boys team is really fired up. We’ve got a lot of really good boys that have come in from our Age Group program.”
The girls also have quite a bit to look forward to. They bring back swimmers such as Sophie Resner, a school record holder for the sectional.
“Our relays are really inspired to place higher,” said Fansler. “For those girls, a big piece of the puzzle is inspiring the rest of the program, getting them excited, too. There’s a really fun buzz of energy that we have right now.”
Like other swimming programs, Noblesville has been on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Swimmers usually are off for no more than one or two weeks, but now it’s been for an extended period of time.
“It’s definitely a unique situation,” said Fansler. “It’s one of the first times in my career that I’ve had to start coaching kids that have been out of the water for more than three months.”
Fansler and his swimmers have spent their times in Zoom meetings, looking how to restructure and focus on what they can do. The coach pointed out that with no meets for the foreseeable future, the swimmers have “a pretty significant amount of time to make some amazing changes to their swimming” that will benefit them in the long run.
Fansler said one of the hardest things to deal with as a coach is how to keep his swimmers in a racing mindset.
“We have to change how we are thinking about practices here and there. It’s kind of embracing a unique opportunity we have and for me, being excited about the weird circumstances that we are coaching in and finding a way to be successful in that.”
USA Swimming has put a hold on sanctioning meets for the time being, so unfortunately, Noblesville Swim Club’s annual Enchanted Forest meet, which usually takes place in July, is postponed. Fansler said the club is looking to see if it will postpone the meet to August, or possibly have to cancel it for the year.
The club got back in the pool on Monday, with a resourceful way to practice social distancing and allow it to help out other clubs. The club converted Forest Park’s main pool from 10 50-meter lanes to 21 25-yard lanes.
“It ends up being pretty cool because we can fit more teams in the water and allows us to utilize that space better,” said Fansler.
Noblesville Swim Club has invited other clubs to practice at the converted Forest Park, as those clubs’ facilities are still closed. Fishers has begun practices there, along with the Carmel, Westfield and Southeastern clubs.
“It’s going to be a busy pool,” said Fansler.