The boys swim team is led by dual threat junior Aidan Jackson who specializes in the 200 IM and also the 100 breaststroke. He hopes to take his team back to state this year and compete for a national title.
“Hopefully this year I think the boys will have a really good team,” Jackson said. “I would love to place higher and save more than we did last year. We got fourth last year. Hopefully we can get third or even second would be amazing. That’s one of my goals. Individually I would also like to place higher than I did last year and state. I’ve been looking at it and I think I could probably get around third to fourth or place higher and top eight and I did last year so hopefully I can do that in both my events.
Jackson has learned a lot about leadership through swim. “We have a tight knit family here at Westside that I love to be a part of and it just taught me like, look out for my fellow swimmers,” he said. “We try to push each other so that we all can be as good as we possibly can be.”
The boys team is led by coach Andy Rider. Rider appreciates what Jackson does for the team.
“He is very versatile so he can kind of do anything for us,” Rider said. “He had a great freshman year, really stepped up sophomore year and he contributed to some of our relays as well as individual events. This year, he’s one of our top swimmers. He’s one of the top swimmers in the state and also in his two events which are the 200 IM and the 100 breaststroke. He trains hard and he wants to be successful. He’s doing the right things. We hope he is gonna help lead our team to state here in a couple weeks.”
As a sophomore, Jackson swam under Kaden Guzman and Nate Germonprez. Both went on to swim D1 on scholarships; Nate at Texas and Kaden at Arizona State. These two had a strong influence on both the team and Aidan, serving as captains during the 2022-2023 season.
“Nate taught us a little group of our guys how to lift correctly so we don’t hurt ourselves and what lessons we should do to improve our swimming because some lifts are really good for swimming,” Jackson said. “I always loved Kaden’s attitude towards the team. Nate was a leader and so was Caden and they were both equal in my opinion, but I just really liked how Caden got us boys together and Nate did a fantastic job of that as well. But I think Nate was more of an in the water leader and Caden was more of an out of the water leader.”
Although swimmers may be in the water alone, swimming is very much a team oriented sport. It is important that they hold up their teammates when they need it and always encourage them to work their absolute hardest.
Similar to Aidan, Coach Rider has a strong pride for their group and understands what it means to truly be a team.
“You know, I really want kids to just believe in themselves,” Rider said. “That’s a big thing that I try to instill. I want kids to train hard and take accountability and focus on what we’re doing and really dive into it and try to do it with everything they have. I think if they do that, with their training at the end of the season, they’ll see the successes of all the hard work they put in.”
Westside is set to compete in the Splash of the Titans meet alongside Marian, Prep and Lincoln Southwest.
