Although swim becoming a state-recognized sport is exciting news for the sport as a whole, it may have some foreseeable challenges for the Sandpoint team specifically.

Not much will change this season for the team, since they have been school-sanctioned for years.

This gave them school support equal to any other varsity team through funding, coaching, and traveling.

“At schools where swimming isn’t school sanctioned, athletes would receive a truancy for travelling and competing at meets,” swimmer Catherine Brenner said.

According to Coach Mike Brosnahan, Sandpoint’s team has been much better off, able to swim and compete without penalty because of the school’s progressive policy on swim.

“The community has supported us for quite some time, but it’s all the other schools that get nothing,” Brosnahan said.

Brosnahan has played an influential role in the Idaho High School Activities Association’s decision to final sanctioning swim.

For the last 10 years, he has been a part of a board that has mirrored the IHSAA’s rules and regulations for swimming specifically.

Because of this group, high schoolers have been able to swim and compete at unofficial state championships for the past 20 years.

Brosnahan pushed this group to put pressure on the IHSAA, and now after years of resisting they have officially sanctioned swimming as a high school sport, making Idaho the 49th state to do so.

While this is great for the sport and swimmers statewide, there are some consequences that may affect the team.

Under IHSAA rules, coaches are not allowed to coach club year round and sports during season. Because of this, Brosnahan will not be able to coach high school swimming next year.

However, he hopes this will not deeply impact the program.

“The program is so well set up that hopefully a new coach will just be able to step into it and continue,” Brosnahan said.

He plans to continue to be involved and advise and as much as he can.

In addition to changes in coaching, the sanctioning will change what teams Sandpoint will compete against.

While they have previously been able to compete against teams like Coeur d’Alene and Lake City, next year’s districts will only include Lakeland and Moscow.

Despite these upcoming challenges, this season has proven to be one of the most successful for the swim team.

“We’ve developed a good base, we have a good swim lesson program that develops swimmers into good athletes, a good age group program that feeds the high school with good swimmers. I think that in the past we’ve had good swimmers, but not as many numbers,” Brosnahan said.

This year has seen an increase in quantity of beginning swimmers who have seen a lot of improvement under the program, attributing to their successful season.

Brosnahan also highlights the leadership and body of experienced swimmers as being key to success of the team.

“We’ve got depth, and we’ve got talent. And if you’ve got both of those going for you then that makes for a pretty successful program,” Brosnahan said.