February 21, 2025 • 10 mins
Josie West, college club and masters swimmer, joins us to share her journey as a 21-year-old club swimmer at the University of Virginia, embarking on her first master's swimming meet. You'll hear firsthand how Josie navigated her inaugural 400 IM event, her aspirations to qualify for the CCS National Championship, and the unique challenges faced when balancing competitive swimming with study abroad experiences. Get a glimpse into the supportive and self-driven culture of UVA's club swim team, part of an expansive network under the US Masters umbrella, where social and competitive elements blend seamlessly.
Join us as Josie enlightens us on the vibrant dynamics of college club swimming, where self-motivation meets community spirit. From flexible training schedules with grad student coaches to exhilarating travel meets each semester, UVA's club team is a testament to the power of passion and perseverance. Discover the synergy between club and varsity teams at UVA, where shared practice spaces and collaborative meet support create a thriving environment for excellence. Don't miss this engaging conversation that celebrates the spirit of competition, camaraderie, and the drive to achieve greatness in collegiate swimming.
Email us at HELLO@ChampionsMojo.com. Opinions discussed are not medical advice, please seek a medical professional for your own health concerns.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Champions Mojo.
Join us for conversations thatinspire and empower you as an
adult athlete, fitnessenthusiast or master swimmer.
Our goal is to make eachepisode insightful and
inspirational and to discoverwhat it takes to build or keep a
life of personal excellence.
(00:22):
I'm your host, Kelly Pallas,and we're here to champion you.
So I have an awesome on-deckinterview today with Josie West.
Josie, welcome to ChampionsMojo, Thank you.
So Josie has a really coolstory.
She swims for the University ofVirginia club team.
(00:45):
She's 21 years old.
She and I just swam the 400 IMagainst each other and this is
her first master swimming meet.
So tell us how this has been,what the 400 IM was like for you
and a little bit about clubswimming.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
So I've been a member of club swimming at UVA for
four years.
I'm a senior at the universityand that's been a lot of fun.
But this is my first master'smeet.
So through our college clubswimming membership we could
enter any master's meets we want, which I've never done before.
But last fall I studied abroadso I couldn't swim any of my
club meets and I'm lookingforward to the CCS National
(01:19):
Championship in Phoenix in March.
But I still need to qualify.
So I just swam the 400 IM atthe Nova Masters meet to make
that qualification time to go toArizona in March.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
What was your 400 IM time?
You were so far ahead of me Ididn't really see it.
It flashed off before I gotthere.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
It was like a 520, which isn't awesome for me, but
it's under the qualifying time,so that's all I needed.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, that's all you needed.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat exactly club swimming is
yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
So club swimming the university has a club and that's
like central to the university.
We have practices, meets, a lotof social events too, but our
team is about 300 people, whichis crazy.
But that team belongs to thelike national entity of college
club swimming which isunderneath the US Masters
umbrella.
That we compete against a lotof other schools and get to
(02:10):
travel to regionals, nationalsand also some dual meets,
inter-squad.
But it's a lot of fun yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
And I think I've heard through the grapevine you
guys are self-coached at some ofthe universities.
Tell us about, like, what doesa club swimmer's training look
like?
And coaching and that kind ofthings Meet schedule.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So we offer like eight practices a week and it's
like go as you want.
There's not like an attendancerequirement.
Our coaches are mostly gradstudents.
We have a couple ex-varsityswimmers that are grad students
that are coaching us, but it'spretty like self-motivated to go
and train.
So I swim probably fivepractices a week and those are
about an hour and a half hour,hour and a half depending on the
(02:50):
day.
Meets we go to about threetravel meets a semester.
So there'll be three like funmeets and then in the fall we
have our Eastern regionals andthen in the spring we'll have
nationals.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And nationals obviously have qualifying times.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What would you say the like yeah, it's college club
swimming is getting a lot morepopular.
So since my first year thetimes have gotten a lot harder.
Our team at UVA is we're prettytalented, so we'll probably be
sending like 40 people toArizona Not to brag.
But the college club swimmingnational champions UVA women are
(03:24):
three times reigning.
So going for our four piece inour women's national title this
year in our women's nationaltitle this year.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
So that's not surprising, because the
University of Virginia's women,the varsity so you guys are the
club team and the varsityobviously is number one.
Now they're going, isn't their5P, they're fifth.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
So do you guys interact?
Do you time at their meets?
Do you watch their meets?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, so we practice right after varsity so we kind
of see them on the deck.
A couple of times I've had aclass with a few of them, so I
know a couple of them and thenwe get invited to time with
their meets on deck.
So we do that all the time andthey donate to our club fund for
putting our time intovolunteering at their meets,
which is cool.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Do you guys do the full taper tech suit?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
getting ready for a meet.
I think it depends on theswimmer.
There's some swimmers that aregoing nationals, that go to
every single practice and trainreally hard and lift on their
own and they'll have a race planthemselves.
But there's other swimmers thatdo this more for the friends
and just happen to make anationals cut.
You know, and we'll do theirown thing, but it's pretty
independent.
You got to know what your ownbody needs.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
So the club.
Actually, the club training isindependent, so, like you guys,
don't do a group taper.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
We do taper off, but I think everyone, because not
everyone's at every practiceevery day and we're all our own
students.
It's a little bit more dialingin your own routine, Right?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So if somebody chooses to go three practices a
week and you choose to go eight,then you need a way different
taper than that person.
So what are you studying?
And when you're a senior, whatare you going to do with your
life?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
I'm a senior at UVA, with graduating with an
architecture degree in May andI'm planning to go and work in
DC for an architecture firm.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, very nice.
Anything that you like,specialize in that you've kind
of been attracted to inarchitecture, the firm that I'm
working for does a lot of likecommercial buildings so kind of
that's.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
everything that's like restaurants, gyms, banks,
schools, sometimes like allsorts of stuff can fall under
that.
But, yeah, very interestingfield.
I'm very new to it all.
It's a lot to learn.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
A lot to learn, so obviously you must have had some
swimming background coming intoclub swimming.
How would you describe yourbackground and what kind of got
you into club swimming and howthat blends with you know, very
academically challenginguniversity?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
up until high school and then I joined my high school
team which is known to have abig history to Olympic gold
medalists in Denver, colorado,missy Franklin and Emma Weber
being those Olympians.
I was really inspired by thatteam.
So then, starting in highschool, started doing year-round
USA swimming and then was superplanning on like swimming D3 in
(06:08):
college and talking to a lot oflike Northeast schools,
middlebury and WashU and Tufts.
But COVID was my junior year ofhigh school so it was right
during that All my meets werecanceled and that kind of made
me pull back and see what elsethere would be if swimming
didn't really work out.
So got right into club swimmingat UVA and it's been amazing,
met all my friends through it,been on exec for two years.
(06:31):
I was actually involved in theCollege of Consuming National
Board too for two years.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Being on exec.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
So I joined as a first year.
Actually I got elected asspirit chair so I did the
merchandise and meat planning alittle bit.
And then the next year I wasthe social chair so that was
planning team dinners and travel.
We do like a training trip anda beach week, you know all sorts
of events like that.
But as an exec member you kindof just help plan.
Everything Comes under the sameumbrella.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Cool.
So do you know much about thepartnership with United States?
Masters Swimming.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Because I was able to serve as Eastern representative
on the College Cup SwimmingAdvisory Board.
I actually do, but not manypeople do Tell me a little bit
about that part.
So College of Swimming isunderneath USMS and when you
join CCS you can check a boxthat says like to do the bridge
membership and that gets you inright away.
But they're starting to phaseit to where everyone's getting
(07:28):
that bridge membership so youcan just go right ahead and
enter these master's meetsunderneath your team from CCS.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
So if you were talking to a senior, or juniors
and seniors who are trying topick, where am I going to?
I want to swim in college.
Maybe I'll do D3, maybe I'lleven do D1, but maybe I won't
make the travel team, or whatwould you say to them?
As far as looking at thecollege, you know the club
swimming team for universities.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
It ended up being for me that my academics came over
swimming, so that's why I endedup at UVA over anywhere, I'd say
.
When I look, when you look intothose teams honestly, their
social media presence gives apretty good level of involvement
.
Like UVA club swim, we attendthree meets a semester.
That's all documented there andall of our social events are
there.
So I think that's a great wayto kind of get a feel for the
(08:17):
team if you don't know anybody.
Also, SwimCloud all of our CCSstuff goes in there.
So if you kind of want to lookat where you would stand on a
team or how competitive a teammight be, it's all in SwimCloud,
which is awesome.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
That's so cool.
And has anyone ever been sogood in your four years at UVA
that they might have made thevarsity team?
Just you know, on improving UVAis a pretty quick varsity team.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So we've actually had a couple of varsity teamers
step down to club.
But we had one boy, emmettHannum.
He's very, very quick, he wonall of his events at CCS
Nationals and he had an optionto like walk on and he actually
decided not to because ofacademic reasons and commitment
reasons.
But it's a rare case,especially in my school, but it
(09:05):
happens.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, I know it happens at other schools.
I just wonder if Todd, you know, would be scouting and seeing
if some, some woman went.
You know, 21 in the 50.
Hey, that's kind of cool, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Todd can get anyone he wants on his team, so he's
not necessarily looking for us,but after our nationals.
He always like, will postsomething up for us and
congratulate us Like he's veryaware of what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, that's really cool.
That's really cool.
Todd's great.
I've had him on the show twice,so he's really an awesome coach
.
So is there anything that Ihave not asked you about club
swimming that you may want toshare?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
My favorite clubs and memories are from the CCS
National Meet.
So it's been in Atlanta, it'sbeen in Columbus.
Last year was at the Knot inIndianapolis and there's usually
over 100 universities there,which is so cool to see everyone
walking in.
And being from Denver, which isvery far from UVA, I have like
people at all sorts of schoolsacross the country, so it's been
(10:03):
really cool to run into peoplefrom high school that I swam
with, from summer team that Iswam with at home and you know
gather like UCLA, and then wegather Oregon and then Wisconsin
and CU and all take a picturetogether and kind of just
celebrate that we're allswimming still.
But that's a meet with a lot ofschool spirit.
It's really fun.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
That's awesome.
Do you plan to swim for life?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I do.
It's a form of exercise thatworks best for me and it's fun,
and I do distance, so I have gotsomething.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I like swimming a long time.
That's great.
Well, I recommend it highly,yeah.
So thank you so much forspending this time with me today
.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Thank you for listening to the Champions Mojo
podcast.
Did you enjoy the show?
We'd be grateful if you wouldleave us a five-star review on
iTunes to help others find us,and we'd also love to hear from
you.
We're on all social mediaplatforms or you can reach us at
championsmojocom.
Welcome to Champions Mojo.
Join us for conversations thatinspire and empower you as an
adult athlete, fitnessenthusiast or master swimmer.
Our goal is to make eachepisode insightful and
inspirational and to discoverwhat it takes to build or keep a
life of personal excellence.
(00:22):
I'm your host, Kelly Pallas,and we're here to champion you.
So I have an awesome on-deckinterview today with Josie West.
Josie, welcome to ChampionsMojo, Thank you.
So Josie has a really coolstory.
She swims for the University ofVirginia club team.
(00:45):
She's 21 years old.
She and I just swam the 400 IMagainst each other and this is
her first master swimming meet.
So tell us how this has been,what the 400 IM was like for you
and a little bit about clubswimming.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
So I've been a member of club swimming at UVA for
four years.
I'm a senior at the universityand that's been a lot of fun.
But this is my first master'smeet.
So through our college clubswimming membership we could
enter any master's meets we want, which I've never done before.
But last fall I studied abroadso I couldn't swim any of my
club meets and I'm lookingforward to the CCS National
(01:19):
Championship in Phoenix in March.
But I still need to qualify.
So I just swam the 400 IM atthe Nova Masters meet to make
that qualification time to go toArizona in March.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
What was your 400 IM time?
You were so far ahead of me Ididn't really see it.
It flashed off before I gotthere.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
It was like a 520, which isn't awesome for me, but
it's under the qualifying time,so that's all I needed.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yeah, that's all you needed.
So tell us a little bit aboutwhat exactly club swimming is
yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
So club swimming the university has a club and that's
like central to the university.
We have practices, meets, a lotof social events too, but our
team is about 300 people, whichis crazy.
But that team belongs to thelike national entity of college
club swimming which isunderneath the US Masters
umbrella.
That we compete against a lotof other schools and get to
(02:10):
travel to regionals, nationalsand also some dual meets,
inter-squad.
But it's a lot of fun yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
And I think I've heard through the grapevine you
guys are self-coached at some ofthe universities.
Tell us about, like, what doesa club swimmer's training look
like?
And coaching and that kind ofthings Meet schedule.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
So we offer like eight practices a week and it's
like go as you want.
There's not like an attendancerequirement.
Our coaches are mostly gradstudents.
We have a couple ex-varsityswimmers that are grad students
that are coaching us, but it'spretty like self-motivated to go
and train.
So I swim probably fivepractices a week and those are
about an hour and a half hour,hour and a half depending on the
(02:50):
day.
Meets we go to about threetravel meets a semester.
So there'll be three like funmeets and then in the fall we
have our Eastern regionals andthen in the spring we'll have
nationals.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And nationals obviously have qualifying times.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What would you say the like yeah, it's college club
swimming is getting a lot morepopular.
So since my first year thetimes have gotten a lot harder.
Our team at UVA is we're prettytalented, so we'll probably be
sending like 40 people toArizona Not to brag.
But the college club swimmingnational champions UVA women are
(03:24):
three times reigning.
So going for our four piece inour women's national title this
year in our women's nationaltitle this year.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
So that's not surprising, because the
University of Virginia's women,the varsity so you guys are the
club team and the varsityobviously is number one.
Now they're going, isn't their5P, they're fifth.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
So do you guys interact?
Do you time at their meets?
Do you watch their meets?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, so we practice right after varsity so we kind
of see them on the deck.
A couple of times I've had aclass with a few of them, so I
know a couple of them and thenwe get invited to time with
their meets on deck.
So we do that all the time andthey donate to our club fund for
putting our time intovolunteering at their meets,
which is cool.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Do you guys do the full taper tech suit?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
getting ready for a meet.
I think it depends on theswimmer.
There's some swimmers that aregoing nationals, that go to
every single practice and trainreally hard and lift on their
own and they'll have a race planthemselves.
But there's other swimmers thatdo this more for the friends
and just happen to make anationals cut.
You know, and we'll do theirown thing, but it's pretty
independent.
You got to know what your ownbody needs.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
So the club.
Actually, the club training isindependent, so, like you guys,
don't do a group taper.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
We do taper off, but I think everyone, because not
everyone's at every practiceevery day and we're all our own
students.
It's a little bit more dialingin your own routine, Right?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
So if somebody chooses to go three practices a
week and you choose to go eight,then you need a way different
taper than that person.
So what are you studying?
And when you're a senior, whatare you going to do with your
life?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
I'm a senior at UVA, with graduating with an
architecture degree in May andI'm planning to go and work in
DC for an architecture firm.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, very nice.
Anything that you like,specialize in that you've kind
of been attracted to inarchitecture, the firm that I'm
working for does a lot of likecommercial buildings so kind of
that's.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
everything that's like restaurants, gyms, banks,
schools, sometimes like allsorts of stuff can fall under
that.
But, yeah, very interestingfield.
I'm very new to it all.
It's a lot to learn.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
A lot to learn, so obviously you must have had some
swimming background coming intoclub swimming.
How would you describe yourbackground and what kind of got
you into club swimming and howthat blends with you know, very
academically challenginguniversity?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
up until high school and then I joined my high school
team which is known to have abig history to Olympic gold
medalists in Denver, colorado,missy Franklin and Emma Weber
being those Olympians.
I was really inspired by thatteam.
So then, starting in highschool, started doing year-round
USA swimming and then was superplanning on like swimming D3 in
(06:08):
college and talking to a lot oflike Northeast schools,
middlebury and WashU and Tufts.
But COVID was my junior year ofhigh school so it was right
during that All my meets werecanceled and that kind of made
me pull back and see what elsethere would be if swimming
didn't really work out.
So got right into club swimmingat UVA and it's been amazing,
met all my friends through it,been on exec for two years.
(06:31):
I was actually involved in theCollege of Consuming National
Board too for two years.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Being on exec.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
So I joined as a first year.
Actually I got elected asspirit chair so I did the
merchandise and meat planning alittle bit.
And then the next year I wasthe social chair so that was
planning team dinners and travel.
We do like a training trip anda beach week, you know all sorts
of events like that.
But as an exec member you kindof just help plan.
Everything Comes under the sameumbrella.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Cool.
So do you know much about thepartnership with United States?
Masters Swimming.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Because I was able to serve as Eastern representative
on the College Cup SwimmingAdvisory Board.
I actually do, but not manypeople do Tell me a little bit
about that part.
So College of Swimming isunderneath USMS and when you
join CCS you can check a boxthat says like to do the bridge
membership and that gets you inright away.
But they're starting to phaseit to where everyone's getting
(07:28):
that bridge membership so youcan just go right ahead and
enter these master's meetsunderneath your team from CCS.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
So if you were talking to a senior, or juniors
and seniors who are trying topick, where am I going to?
I want to swim in college.
Maybe I'll do D3, maybe I'lleven do D1, but maybe I won't
make the travel team, or whatwould you say to them?
As far as looking at thecollege, you know the club
swimming team for universities.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
It ended up being for me that my academics came over
swimming, so that's why I endedup at UVA over anywhere, I'd say
.
When I look, when you look intothose teams honestly, their
social media presence gives apretty good level of involvement
.
Like UVA club swim, we attendthree meets a semester.
That's all documented there andall of our social events are
there.
So I think that's a great wayto kind of get a feel for the
(08:17):
team if you don't know anybody.
Also, SwimCloud all of our CCSstuff goes in there.
So if you kind of want to lookat where you would stand on a
team or how competitive a teammight be, it's all in SwimCloud,
which is awesome.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
That's so cool.
And has anyone ever been sogood in your four years at UVA
that they might have made thevarsity team?
Just you know, on improving UVAis a pretty quick varsity team.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So we've actually had a couple of varsity teamers
step down to club.
But we had one boy, emmettHannum.
He's very, very quick, he wonall of his events at CCS
Nationals and he had an optionto like walk on and he actually
decided not to because ofacademic reasons and commitment
reasons.
But it's a rare case,especially in my school, but it
(09:05):
happens.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, I know it happens at other schools.
I just wonder if Todd, you know, would be scouting and seeing
if some, some woman went.
You know, 21 in the 50.
Hey, that's kind of cool, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Todd can get anyone he wants on his team, so he's
not necessarily looking for us,but after our nationals.
He always like, will postsomething up for us and
congratulate us Like he's veryaware of what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, that's really cool.
That's really cool.
Todd's great.
I've had him on the show twice,so he's really an awesome coach
.
So is there anything that Ihave not asked you about club
swimming that you may want toshare?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
My favorite clubs and memories are from the CCS
National Meet.
So it's been in Atlanta, it'sbeen in Columbus.
Last year was at the Knot inIndianapolis and there's usually
over 100 universities there,which is so cool to see everyone
walking in.
And being from Denver, which isvery far from UVA, I have like
people at all sorts of schoolsacross the country, so it's been
(10:03):
really cool to run into peoplefrom high school that I swam
with, from summer team that Iswam with at home and you know
gather like UCLA, and then wegather Oregon and then Wisconsin
and CU and all take a picturetogether and kind of just
celebrate that we're allswimming still.
But that's a meet with a lot ofschool spirit.
It's really fun.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
That's awesome.
Do you plan to swim for life?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I do.
It's a form of exercise thatworks best for me and it's fun,
and I do distance, so I have gotsomething.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I like swimming a long time.
That's great.
Well, I recommend it highly,yeah.
So thank you so much forspending this time with me today
.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Thank you for listening to the Champions Mojo
podcast.
Did you enjoy the show?
We'd be grateful if you wouldleave us a five-star review on
iTunes to help others find us,and we'd also love to hear from
you.
We're on all social mediaplatforms or you can reach us at
championsmojocom.
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