The Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center on the University of Minnesota campus is Summer Schmit’s home away from home.

As a member of the Gophers swim team, it’s where she practices, trains and competes. She’s walked its floors, done laps through its waters and gazed up into its stands more times than she can count. Which is why come June, when the facility hosts the U.S. Paralympic Team Trials, she’ll have a home-field advantage as she tries to earn a trip to Paris.

“Even growing up I had a lot of competitions there,” said Schmit, who grew up about 30 minutes away in Stillwater, Minnesota. “My first ever long-course meet was actually at this pool, so it’s a very full-circle moment to experience this as not only a Paralympian and member of Team USA but also as a Gopher. It’s a really incredible opportunity to have my family and friends and teammates be able to come and watch. I do feel very lucky because not many people have that opportunity.”

Schmit, 20, was just a high schooler the last time she was vying to make a Paralympic team. Born with congenital disarticulation of the right wrist and missing that hand, Schmit made her first emerging time standard in 2016 and continued to progress in the Para side of the sport. In her 2021 Paralympic debut in Tokyo, she raced in five events and finished as high as fifth in the 200-meter individual medley SM9.

Now with two years of college swimming under her belt, Schmit said, she feels a lot more experienced than she did heading into Tokyo.

“I feel like I’ve become more confident as an athlete and I just believe in myself more, even though that’s still something I work on every day,” she said. “As I get more experience I’m able to trust in the training that I’ve put in, and that really helps me.”

Schmit is one of several members of the U.S. national team who swims in college, including Olivia Chambers and Cali Prochaska at Northern Iowa and Noah Jaffe at Cal. Yet the fact remains that she is usually the only Para athlete competing at her college meets.

“Which really just kind of makes me think about how so many more athletes deserve this opportunity, but there may not be as many coaches open to the idea like my coaches were when I was being recruited,” she said.

Schmit hopes her presence can not only serve as an example to young Para athletes but also to other college coaches and programs.

“And hopefully they’ll recognize that Para athletes do deserve more and should have opportunities for representation and be able to compete at high-level meets and include more Para categories within college meets,” she said.

Education has always been important to Schmit. As a high school student she was a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and a three-time Scholastic All-American, and as a freshman last year she was named Hardest Worker and winner of the Outstanding Student-Athlete Award with a GPA of over 3.50 at the 2023 team banquet. A psychology major with a minor in Spanish, Schmit is on track to graduate early and plans to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a teacher.

Asked what she loves most about college life, Schmit couldn’t list just one thing.

“I absolutely love my college team, my classes, my major … everything about it has been great so far,” she said. “I think the training schedule has been rigorous, but it’s been really good for me to reach another level in my training. I also love our weightlifting sessions; those are some of my favorite times of the week. And I’ve had a lot of fun making friends outside of swimming as well. I studied abroad (in Madrid) last summer, which was super fun and a chance to meet a lot of new people. I’m really trying to experience things outside of swimming in addition to having the incredible opportunity to be on the team.”

With the trials rapidly approaching, Schmit said she’ll spend these last two months fine-tuning her technique, making sure she has a good taper and preparing herself mentally for what she hopes will be a second trip to the Paralympics.

“It would mean the world to me, and I would truly love the opportunity to compete for Team USA again at the Paralympics,” she said. “Tokyo was such a wonderful experience, and I would truly love to be able to represent my country again at the highest level of competition and do the best I can for my country.”

Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic and Paralympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to USParaSwimming.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.

This Summer’s Swimming Trials Will Be Like Coming Home For Summer Schmit

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