Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: Sports

Coaches often tell athletes to visualize themselves succeeding in an upcoming competition to ease their nerves. With twin brother Andrew as a teammate from grade school through high school, the competition was already there for freshman swimmer Jerod Simek.

Jerod has four B cuts, is on the cusp of qualifying for nationals and said one of his ultimate goals before he graduates is to be an All-American.

When Jerod first took to the water, he had no goals in mind. He was 8 years old and joined a summer league to hang out with his friends. After that, though, his life was never the same.

It did not take long before Andrew, now a freshman at Missouri University of Science & Technology, wanted to join too. The next summer both were swimming on the same club team. For a while, the Simek brothers competed in many of the same events, but Jerod recalled how that changed on their club coach's whim.

"I don't remember when it was - I think it was maybe 12 or 13 [years old] - my coach decided, 'Oh, it'd be fun to put him in the mile,'" Jerod said. "So he put me in the mile, and I was close to a sectional cut at the time so he was like, 'Oh, I guess he's going to be a distance swimmer.'"

From that point on, Jerod stuck mostly to distance and Andrew stayed with sprints, but that did not diminish their bond. Both fed off the company and support of the other, and this was evident in workouts.

"If it's a tough set and I don't think I can do it, he's right there and he's motivating me saying, 'You can do it,'" Jerod said. "'Don't give up on the set. You've done sets harder than this.'"

That respect for each other was essential to their performance in the pool and relationship outside the pool, but the two held starkly different views on the nature of their motivation.

"Sometimes we'd end up in the same heat racing each other, but we weren't really going out there to beat each other," Andrew said. "We were just going out there to race."

For Jerod, the friendly competition has been vital to his success as a swimmer. In the 2005 Ozark Championship at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, the Simeks found themselves in a battle for the title of top overall swimmer. With the trophy on the line, Andrew had just one event left and needed to finish third or better to edge out his brother in total points. Jerod said he remembers the conflicting emotions as he watched his brother compete.

"There's that part of me that really wants him to win because I knew he had the chance to do it," Jerod said. "He was second, and I knew he could beat the kid that he was going against. But there was the other part of me that really wanted him to get fourth, so I got the trophy."

Continued...

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