All-Star Swimmer

Swim team cocaptain Stephanie Nasson (SAR’16) will compete at the 2016 Olympic trials in Omaha, Neb., this summer. Graphic by Joe Chan

Stephanie Nasson peers down her lane, grips the starting block with her toes, then leaps into the air, making it look like she’s covering nearly half the length of the pool with her dive. The cocaptain of the women’s swim team—and one of the best swimmers in the NCAA—can finish the 1,650-yard freestyle event in 16:17.71, a feat that earned her a record at the 2014 NCAA Championships.

“Swimming is odd in that when you’re younger—I don’t want to say it takes over your life—but it becomes a priority really fast,” says Nasson (SAR’16). “The time commitment alone means there’s not much time for anything else. And the way you train, it’s an endurance sport, so it takes a lot of time. My whole life revolves around it.”

That endurance training has made Nasson a powerhouse in the water. She was the first female swimmer from BU to qualify for the NCAA Championships since 1988, and last August she was named to the Patriot League 25th Anniversary Team. In  summer 2016, she will compete at the 2016 Olympic trials in Omaha, Nebr.

This weekend, she will lead BU in the annual three-day, nine-school Terrier Invitational, where she will swim in the 100-, 200-, 500-, and 1,650-yard freestyle races. Last year, the University finished first overall against competitors like the University of Massachusetts and Boston College.

“It’s our mid season meet, marking the halfway point,” says Nasson. “When you get to trials finals like that, the expectation is a little bit higher to swim fast and the competition gets a little harder.” She says it will be a practice run for the Patriot League Championships in February.

CollegeSwimming.com currently ranks the BU team second, behind Navy, in the Patriot League.

When Nasson was eight years old she was injured in a figure skating accident. She then began swimming competitively. Although her mom swam for the University of Rhode Island, she never morphed into a sideline coach, Nasson says, because both her parents could see that she was her own toughest critic. “I’m very self-motivated,” she says. “I’m hard on myself, so I think my parents took the role as the encouragers, rather than the critics.”

The Wrentham, Mass., native swam competitively in high school, and among other honors, was a three-time Massachusetts state champion in the 500 freestyle, a three-time USA Swimming Scholastic All-American, a three-time Boston Globe and Boston Herald All-Scholastic, and two-time qualifier for USA Swimming Nationals.

At BU, Nasson is a leader on the team. The men and women Terriers compete separately, but swim under the same coaches and practice at the same time, so when Nasson refers to her “team” she means both men and women. “I don’t think any other team at BU thinks that way,” she says. “We can train really hard and then get out of the pool and have dinner together, which is really cool. It’s one of my favorite things about the team.”

Last year, the swimming and diving team had a rare day off to sleep in, but Nasson wasn’t having it, and she pushed her teammates to join her in the weight room at 7 a.m.

“I think Stephanie has one of the greatest work ethics of anyone I’ve ever known,” says teammate Kaitlin Law (COM’17). “She works so hard that it spreads to everyone. She makes people want to work harder, and that helps us be a better team.”

When she’s not in the water, the health sciences major is busy interning and researching tracheostomy care in the pulmonary department at Boston Children’s Hospital. She says she wants to be either a physician’s assistant or a nurse practitioner.

Nasson will close out her college career this summer at the 2016 US Olympic team trials, where she will be joined by teammate Garrett Chin (CGS’16). She competed in the 2012 Olympic trials, missed making the team by less than half a second, and finally made it to this summer’s trials early sophomore year. “I was in archaeology class and the news came over Twitter,” she remembers. “I’m very excited for this summer. My family will come, my friends will come, and it will be my last meet. It might be a good way to end a good career.”

The BU men’s and women’s swim teams host the Terrier Invitational tomorrow, Friday, November 20, at 10 a.m., through Sunday, November 22, at the FitRec Center competition pool, 915 Commonwealth Ave. Admission is free.