Water baby

March 21, 2016

She started swimming competitively at the age of 9 or 10, and she came to Skidmore because “first my mom fell in love with it online, and then I did too when I visited and met the swim coach and saw the campus.” Now Yookee Roh just finished her senior season as a key member of the Thoroughbreds swim team.

Coming to Skidmore from Tenafly, N.J., Roh found that “the swim team had a higher level of competition, but it was also friendlier. My high school team was really big, so I didn’t know all my teammates. Here, it’s a smaller group, and I’ve been roommates with some team members.” She also remembers that “nobody pulled seniority; the team was very welcoming.” All four years, she says, “Everybody has been friends with everybody. We’re very competitive against other schools, but we support each other.”

A frequent competitor in individual-medley events (doing laps in butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle), Roh says, “People swim past me during the breaststroke, but I make up time in the other strokes. I really enjoy sprinting.” At the UNYSCSA championships in late February, she beat the Skidmore record (which she’d set herself as a sophomore) in the 200-yard IM.

Coach Jill Belding Greenleaf praises Roh’s versatility. Her work ethic and toughness in racing, she says, “allowed us to shift her events as needed to maximize the team’s chances. She graduates with seven college records, spanning her four years depending on our focus each season.”

 For her part, Roh says, “Of all the coaches I’ve worked with in my years of swimming, Jill is the best by far. There’s a reason for every single thing she says and does with each athlete, in the pool, on the bus, in team meetings. She motivates and inspires us, accommodating her approach to our individual personalities.”

With help from Greenleaf and her assistant coach, Nicki Damiano, Roh says the team mixes hard work with fun and relaxation. She admits, “When I’m waiting for the buzzer, I fiddle with my hands a bit to distract myself from being nervous. But as soon as I hit the water, I’m fine. As Jill often tells us, we’ve trained for this—our bodies know what they need to know. Giving us that confidence is really helpful.”

Roh hopes to build on her major in health and exercise sciences and find work in physical therapy. And also to keep swimming, “because I just love it— I feel like a five-year-old in the water.”