The kids, parents and coaches who make up the Lake Quivira Catfish swim team community

say they think it’s pretty obvious why young lake residents should join: Any kid who lives on the

edge of a big body of water should know how to swim — and how to swim well.

But when they describe what it’s like to be part of the swim team, they talk more about fun and

friendship than safety and sense. Catfish swimmers develop lifelong friendships in the water,

and their summer memories are filled with blue ribbon-covered refrigerators, after-meet trips to

Sonic, and shivering together in the early-morning lake water.

Lake Quivira’s swim team, whose roots trace back to the 1940s, is about to start another season

of training and competition. The team is open to nearly all skill levels, said head coach Jamie

Childe, who is about to enter her second season leading the Catfish. As long as they can swim

one stroke and can safely be in the water, kids are welcome to join. The younger swimmers

focus on freestyle and backstroke. Ages 8 to 18 learn and compete in freestyle, breaststroke,

backstroke and butterfly.

Though she’s been with the team for just a year, Childe said, she can see why it’s such an

important part of summer at the lake. Even the swimmers who don’t possess a competitive spirit

gain safety skills: If they jump off the dock or find themselves unintentionally in the water, they’ll

be able to confidently get themselves to dry land.

While water safety may be what parents are after, recent Catfish members say that the real

benefit of joining the team is a sense of belonging. What they find is a place to make summer

memories with other lake kids.

Sylvia MohrSting, now 18, just finished her last competitive season with the team, which she’d

been a part of for a decade.

She moved with her parents, Amanda Stinger and Ian Mohrmann, and little sister, Stella, from

Kansas City, Missouri, to Lake Quivira when she was 8. Previously, her summers had been

spent at programs put on by her school. When the family arrived at the lake, though, they

discovered the Summer Rec program and was overwhelmed with all the fun activities the girls

could choose from.

“There were just so many things to do,” Sylvia said. “We could golf, we could play tennis, we

could join swim team.”

The girls’ parents told them they had to choose swimming, tennis or golf and give it a real try.

Syliva and her sister started with tennis and swim.

“And I just kind of fell in love with swim team,” she said. “And then along came the friends.”

Syliva was decent at swimming, she said, but over the years — and with the help of her

coaches — she became good. Her specialty was the butterfly, which clicked for her around age

10 or 11.

Now, Sylvia is a freshman at Eckerd College in Florida, where she plays soccer. But she’ll be

back this summer and will work as a coach for the Catfish.

She said she’d recommend that all kids at Lake Quivira join the team. That’s where she met

some of her best friends, many of whom she didn’t attend school with. Sure, she may have

eventually met those kids at the lake, but members of the swim team bond over early-morning

meets, tough practices, and post-meet outings to Sonic for blue slushies. Catfishers are quickly

initiated into a happy club of “lake rats” and see friends everywhere they go.

One of her best memories, Sylvia said, is of a race where she broke her own personal record.

All of her friends were waiting for her when she got out of the water, and they all were cheering.

“In the moment, I didn’t think much of it,” she said. “It was just, ‘My buddies are here with me,

and I’m having a great time.’ But looking back, it’s all about the friends that you make. I hang out

with them still.”

One of Sylvia’s closest friends is 17-year-old Niko Lilja, daughter of Marti and Brady Lilja. Niko

first joined the swim team when she was 5, and last summer, she served as team captain.

When she was little, she said, her parents wanted the family to take advantage of everything the

lake had to offer. It seemed like all the lake kids were in swim team, she said, so she decided to

join, too.

She loved it immediately, and she started winning ribbons and trophies. Eventually, she got a

case so she could display them all.

“I would add them every time, and it was my favorite thing,” Niko said.

Niko became a backstroke specialist, and eventually, she joined the high school swim team.

Backstroke was her race there, too.

The best part of being on the team, she said, was team trips to Sonic and the end-of-the-season

tradition of a Catfish family meet, where kids can race their parents.

Like Sylvia, Niko says that forming lasting friendships with other lake kids was her favorite part

of being on the team. But she also picked up a lifelong skill.

“Overall, my confidence in swimming grew,” she said. “I wouldn't have become such a strong

swimmer without it, which I think is really important, since we do live at a lake, and there's water

everywhere.”

Childe said that she’s loved getting to know the kids at the lake, and it’s fun to watch them grow.

Swimmers learn to conquer their fears. She spoke about one young member from last season

who was terrified by the noise of the starting gun. But as the season went on, she talked herself

out of her fear and was able to break a personal record.

It’s also fun to watch the kids having so much fun, Childe said. She laughs when she talks about

the swimmers’ favorite parts of the summer: Any time a swimmer breaks a personal best race

time, he or she gets the privilege of pushing the coach off the dock and into the water.

Last year, she watched a few shy, nervous kids timidly arrive at the first day of practice then

finish the season with a whole gang of pals. She sees them running around the lake with their

swim team friends, and she hears about bowling outings and birthday parties attended by kids

who met each other through the Catfish.

Members of the Catfish also learn the importance of teamwork, she said, and of supporting

each other.

“As a team, they all do a really good job at encouraging their teammates,” she said. “It always

makes me happy to see them cheering their teammates on, and it’s not like I have to tell them to

do it.”