Quiet Swimmer Earns Respect

When Jon Roberts returned to regular swim workouts this September, he decided to go all out in an attempt to break the one-minute barrier for the 100-yd. freestyle. Tuesday evening at the Greater Boston Championships, Roberts shaved nearly two and a half seconds off his previous best of 1:00.6 and met his goal with a time of 57.41.

Roberts did not win the race, but that came as no surprise to him or the other members of Harvard's powerhouse swim team. Since he embarked on a college swimming career two years ago as a 16-year-old, advanced-standing sophomore, Roberts has never won a race for the Harvard Varisty. In fact, he finishes many races dead last.

The moment he first stepped foot on the IAB pool deck and teammate Bobby Hackett mistook him for a member of the AAU Gators junior high contingent, the slightly-built newcomer realized lack of bulk might be a problem. After a few laps spent trying to keep up with the Harvard swim team, Roberts discovered he had bigger problems to contend with.

"When I first started with the team I was a total wimp," Roberts recalls. "I almost drowned trying to stay up with the rest of the team."

Coach Joe Bernal's idea of an afternoon workout included covering three or four times the distance that Roberts swam in a week with the Bronx High School of Science swim team.

"Jon had a lot of trouble with the workouts--I expected he'd get his fill pretty quickly and then drop out of the program," Bernal said recently. "He showed a lot of guts when he continued to take the punishment week after week. He is the type of athlete you love to have on your team: no nonsense and no complaining, just enthusiasm and dedication."

Roberts' desire to improve was and still is reflected in his consistent attendance at each week's ten practice sessions. During his first Harvard reading period, he stayed up all night, completed a Hum 9a paper at 6:45 a.m., ran to morning workout, then studied all day and--without a wink of sleep--returned to the pool for more practice that evening. He paid the price for his enthusiasm with a case of the flu and some missed practices.

"I am not quite so diligent during reading and exam period, anymore," says Roberts. "As much as I enjoy swimming, I know my future rides on math, so I put in the time with the books."

Combining math and swimming has never been quite as easy as Robert's quiet persistence seems to indicate. In his first season, no one told him to get goggles to protect his eyes from the chlorine, so each night the math major spent hours trying to read his number theory texts with tired, bloodshot eyes. Although he now knows to wear goggles when conditions require them, the battle against falling asleep in class and at the library continues, thanks to 7 a.m. workouts.

"I admire Jon more than any other swimmer on the team," Hackett said earlier this week. "To start serious swimming so late is an incredible disadvantage, plus he was the youngest and smallest guy on the team. He is amazingly dedicated. In spite of a very difficult course load, he makes more early morning practices than any of us."

The energy Roberts puts into swimming shows in his steady improvement throughout the past two years. During that difficult first season, he first broke 30 seconds in the against Andover. Over the past two seasons he has whittled that down and on Tuesday evening he garnered a respectable 25.33. While dropping seconds, Roberts has increased strength partly from the water workouts, but also from rugged sessions on the Nautilus three times a week before morning swim practice.

When Roberts arrived at Harvard in the fall of 1977, he weighed approximately 120 lbs. and could barely bench-press his own weight. He now tips the scales at 140 and bench presses 175 lbs.

"I am pleased with my improvement--I just wanted to be a member of a team, and swimming seemed like my only alternative," Roberts said recently. "Our upset over Princeton freshman year and this weekend's win against Indiana are my biggest thrills in college."

"Jon Roberts epitomizes my philosophy of Harvard sports," Bernal said Tuesday after the GBCs. "Even if a kid has to start from scratch and work his way up, he belongs on the team if he makes the time and puts in the work.