Swim Team raises money for cancer

November 20th, 2009 | By Matt Bachtell | Section: Sports

The swim team participated in the “Leave it all in the Pool” Hour of Power fundraiser event for cancer research on Tuesday, November 10 in the Physical Education Complex.  The fundraiser is held by the parents of Ted Mullin, a swimmer from Carleton College who died in the fall of 2006 of synovial cell sarcoma, a rare soft-tissue cancer and the money goes to University of Chicago for research.

The Hour of Power is a relay event, where the swim team must swim laps for a full hour, each lane keeping pace with every other lane. Over a hundred swim teams around the country, as well as international teams, hold the fundraiser. Also participating in the relay at Grinnell are the divers despite the fact that many of them have no formal swimming training.

“More teams are coming in every year and raising more money, and then all the money goes to cancer research at University of Chicago,” said Swim Team Captain Meghan McDoniel, ’10, who swam the relay while studying abroad in Denmark in 2008.

The team raised money by collecting from dorms across campus, and by contributing leftover funds from other team events, ultimately raising around $1,300.

“This has been our most successful year.  Swimming-wise, people have always swam as hard as they could the entire time, people are cheering the entire time,” said Tim Hammond, Assistant Swim Coach. “We raised more money this year than we have the last two years combined.”