Club Tribe celebrates around a poster naming them winners of the National Masters club team championship. Courtesy of Kyle Ahlgren

Club Tribe, an adult swimming organization initially started by William & Mary swimming alumni, captured the 2022 U.S. Masters Swimming Summer Championship club title in Richmond last Sunday.

While defeating 169 other club teams, including Swim Fort Lauderdale (second place) and Sarasota Sharks (third place) both in Florida, Club Tribe set two FINA (International Swimming Federation) world records and six USMS national records.

The meet was divided into sections, club teams and regional teams. The Virginia Masters team, a regional group, placed second among the 17 regional programs, behind North Carolina Masters.

William & Mary graduates Kyle Ahlgren (’97) and Rich Williams (’98) decided in 2014 that they wanted to put together a relay team to compete in the U.S. Masters Swimming program. “However, we found out that you had to have a team, not just individuals. Thus, Club Tribe was formed,” he said.

Masters swimming is an organized program of swimming for adults 18 and over. There are near 65,000 masters swimmers across the country associated with U.S. Masters Swimming, which began in 1970 in Sarasota, Florida.

Club Tribe is not the same as the Tribe Club, which is the fundraising arm of William & Mary athletics.

Ahlgren, club general manager and now a lawyer living in Bethesda, Maryland, stressed, “We don’t claim any connection with William & Mary even though we wear green and gold. Club Tribe was begun by William & Mary swim alumni to serve as a masters swimming home for alumni.

“But we’re by no means exclusively William & Mary.”

Club Tribe’s FINA World Record 200 medley relay team poses with Coach Rich Williams (middle) in the 200-240 age group. L-R are Fall Willeboordse (New York University), Margaret Conze (Bucknell University), Kristen Harris (William & Mary class of 1998) and Susan Williams (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill). Courtesy of Rich Williams

Club Tribe had 60 swimmers last weekend at summer nationals, and 24 had some kind of association with the college. “At times we may have as many University of Virginia folks with us as William & Mary,” Ahlgren explained.

Age diversity ranging from 19 to 76 “is one of the things I truly love of this team,” he added. “In this world we are living in now, it’s hard to get to know people of different ages. We’re being pushed apart. This club draws people from all ages.”

And all Virginia locations. The team originally was not organized to grow, “but then we attracted people from all over who liked the way we trained and we grew,” explained Williams, who is Club Tribe’s coach. “Some of the best swimmers in the state found us and we’re honored to have them.”

Williams was the childhood coach of U.S. Olympic medalist swimmer Katie Hoff, who swam in summer Williamsburg area neighborhood meets with the Windsor Forest Frogs and year-round with the Williamsburg Aquatic Club (WAC).

Williams and Ahlgren spent much time before the summer championships arranging — and optimizing — the formation of their relay teams to get the max potential from their small numbers. For example, Swim Fort Lauderdale brought 90 swimmers to the meet, as compared to Club Tribe’s 60.

Relay age groups are determined by the collective ages of the four swimmers. If you have youngers swimmers then they could be found in groups 72-99 or 100-119. The older swimmers are assigned in the 200-239 category.

Club Tribe set world records in the women’s 200-239 group 200-meter freestyle relay and the women’s 200-239 group 200-meter medley relay. These two events also set USMS national records. Members of the freestyle teams included Fall Willeboordse, Courtney Hurtubise, Susan Williams and Margaret Conze. Members of the medley team included Susan Williams, Kristen Harris, Margaret Conze and Fall Willeboordse.

Willeboordse, Hurtubise, Williams and Harris won individual national championships during last weekend’s competition.

Coach Rich Williams (right) cheers for John Rockwell, a 1996 William & Mary graduate, in the 45-49 age group 200 butterfly race. Also on the team was Rockwell’s son, Lewis, currently a Carnegie Mellon University swimmer, who swam in the 18-24 age group for backstroke. Courtesy of Dan Earle

Winning the national club championship was admittedly “an audacious goal,” Ahlgren said. “We were an underdog team, simply by the number of participants. No one expected us to go this. We were a real long shot.”

Williams acknowledged that the team had worked “specifically for this meet for years. Originally, we wanted to compete strong in the 2020 event, but it was cancelled due to COVID. When we came to this year we were never super overconfident. We just focused and worked hard.”

When the meet began, “we just wanted to stay ahead of Fort Lauderdale and were after Thursday’s first day. But it was not until the last event of the meet that we realized they couldn’t catch us,” Williams added.

“I am flush with gratitude today for everyone who bought in and decided to chase this dream with us,” Ahlgren wrote on his Facebook page.

Club Tribe was involved in the 2020 efforts to save the William & Mary swim program that was among others designed to be cut from the athletic program by then-W&M athletic director Samantha Huge.

Ultimately, all the teams were saved.

Club Tribe plans to continue swimming and plans to host its own masters meet in February at the William & Mary pool.

Wilford Kale, kalehouse@aol.com