South Kitsap community members, district employees and swimmers have been waiting for the following words for years: “That concludes the first swim meet in our new home.”
That announcement finally came on Oct. 11, Senior Night for girls swim, via the public address microphone inside the walls of the newly renovated community pool at South Kitsap High School. Those same walls echoed shortly after with the cheers of ambivalent student-athletes and parents who had waited a long time for the venue to open and even longer for a pool to take pride in.
“It’s been a very long wait,” senior Jaclyn Baker said. “The pool got pushed back multiple times, so this is very nice that it’s finally open, and I get to use it for my last meet ever.”
Pool repairs have been at the forefront of district and community priorities for years following several complications with the facility that forced a brief closure in 2017, just four years after the pool had been reopened. Funding provided from the $21.7 million capital levy for district-wide renovations passed in 2018, as well as COVID rescue dollars, provided a majority of the funding for the project.
Consistent delays and multiple increases in renovation costs initially kept hopes low for SKHS swim coach Nicole Miller and her team, but she was able to break the news to her team just a week prior following announcements from the school district that the nearly $11 million pool renovations were nearing completion and that an open house had been planned for Oct. 14 to publicly preview the finished work.
“It was especially fun for them to have this, and it kind of ended up being more special because it was our Senior Night,” the coach said.
The meet was bittersweet for the senior class, whose time in athletics was dramatically affected by the pandemic and lengthy waits for the pool. With this the first and last home meet for them this year, senior Kelsey Robertson said emotions were hard to control. “There were a lot of nerves, too. You know, it’s so sad to be leaving everyone. It was really difficult,” she said.
The construction saw the school’s swim teams decrease dramatically in size, and practices were hard with their pool out of commission, swimmers said.
“A lot of people quit when it started, and we had to start traveling,” Baker said. “It went from just an hour-and-a-half practice to, with travel, we were traveling an hour each time. The bus would leave at six, and we wouldn’t be back until nine, even 9:30 p.m.”
Baker said water polo went even later, with students not returning home until after 10 p.m.
For those who stuck it out, Miller was grateful, praising her senior girls for being leaders in such a difficult situation.
“It was cool for the athletes that continued to stay despite having to do weird schedules and sacrifices that they usually wouldn’t have to make,” she said. “I’m looking forward to being able to have my own pool and my own time that we can schedule as well.”
Robertson added: “There will always be a lot of memories, and even though it was so tough going all the way to Silas (High School in Tacoma) or wherever, we made the most of it.”
