When you’re a dedicated student who perennially lands on the principal’s list for all the right reasons and you have the discipline it takes to compete as a swim racer with the Prince George Barracudas swim team, it’s no big deal to miss a couple days of school to travel to a race meet.
This week, Hannah Rodts has an entirely different reason to play hooky from her Grade 12 studies at Duchess Park Secondary School. She’s been invited to visit the campus of Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D., for a weekend recruiting trip that could lead to a scholarship opportunity.
Rodts created a personal profile on the Next College Student Athlete website which highlights her academic achievements and athleticism and her virtual profile has been shared over a network connects her with college coaches throughout Canada and the United States. Rodts received a reply from Northern State swim coach Kaden Huntrods, who offered to host her on a fly-in visit.
“The coach there told me he could offer me a pretty good scholarship,” said Rodts.
Rodts has also applied to several Canadian universities, including UBC, UVic, UNBC, Queen’s and McGill and has had several responses, but Northern State is the first to offer a chance to continue swimming career. An aspiring pediatrician or neurosurgeon, she’s considering biochemistry or biomedical studies as her major field of study.
The Barracudas club has a long history of developing student-athletes who went on to race at university programs and one of Rodts’s mentors is Hannah Esopenko, who left in 2018 to begin a swimming scholarship at the University of Houston, where she’s enrolled in the pharmacy program.
“I’ve known her for awhile but I only started swimming with her in her last year here,” said Rodts. “She’s graduating this year, I believe.”
Now 17, Rodts started swimming with the Barracudas when she was nine. At that time she’s already been playing soccer for six years and her parents decided to sign her up for swim lessons.
“I had to choose between one or the other because they were taking up too much time and I chose swimming,” said Rodts, while taking a break from swimming practice laps at the pool. “It’s way warmer in here.”
She always excelled as a freestyler and backstroke specialist but her butterfly stroke has improved significantly over the past couple years, working with head coach Jerzy Partyka, and she’s become more of an all-around swimmer.
After two years of pandemic-related cancellations, the Barracudas’ annual Dental Moose Meet is scheduled for next weekend at the Aquatic Centre and that will give Rodts a chance to put her hundreds of hours of training to work for her in a race.
“We haven’t had a long course meet since 2019 so that’s going to be nice to try to improve my long course times,” said Rodts.
Rodts didn’t quite make the standards needed to compete in this weekend’s Western Canadian championships, which start Friday in Edmonton. She needed to shave about three seconds off her time in the 400-metre freestyle. Tommy Brown and Isaac Bennett will represent the ‘Cudas at Westerns.
“I prefer distance events,” said Rodts. “I just like getting better for myself. I’ve seen all the other girls swims and they’ve done really good so I’m like, I can be like them.”
