Everyone loves teammates who feel like family, but how many people have family for teammates? Hadley and Bennett Wartner, swimmers from the club team Minnesota Flyers out of the Twin Cities, have a unique dynamic as siblings who share their love of the sport. Hadley is an incoming freshman on the swim team at Gustavus Adolphus College, where she plans to major in engineering and pre-dental. She is also eager “to make an impact on the team” in her breaststroke events. Bennett is firing up for his senior year at DeLaSalle high school as he continues his college swim team search.
Hadley began swimming competitively at age 6 through a local club team based out of the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities pool. Hadley brought her swim bag and equipment, while Bennett and his mother brought books to enhance his reading skills as well as watching his sister practice. These early days marked the start of her career as a student-athlete, as well as Bennett’s. Soon after, Bennett joined and was immediately charmed by “a whole variety of age groups; kids my age six to seven, ages six to twelve” and “made friends with kids a wide array of ages.” The people were a large part of what made him fall in love with the sport, and inspired him “to stick with it just cause how great of a team aspect, even though it was individual.” In 2015, the program shut down and Minnesota Flyers was born. Practices have been held at the UMN pool ever since. Many of the same swimmers continued with Minnesota Flyers, and newcomers arrived too. To Hadley, they are “all life long friendships, been friends with most of them since [she] started swimming or since they joined the team.” She noted that impressively, even former teammates who no longer participate in swimming drop in to visit at practices. Even as the team has expanded in size, they have done an excellent job of maintaining a close-knit vibe. Bennett describes his teammates “Like a family cause everyone just is so close, and such good friends. It’s at the point it’s like family.” Distance has never torn that bond “even with kids who stopped swimming or changed teams… [he sees] them as best friends and happy to see them.”
The team during the summer practices every morning at a grueling 5:45am start time. They carpool to the U with other friends, where they share four lanes with roughly five to seven kids in each lane. Hadley does her best to be a teammate that is “supportive, patient and uplifting.” To her, it’s important to be “patient when they’re struggling, because it’s something we all experience.” Bennett strives to “push to be the best” by finding the perfect “balance of uplifting your teammates and some good competition. Those two combined go a long way.” The team also participates in fun activities for additional bonding such as team frisbee and intrasquad meets. Hadley loves the opportunity for “team bonding with different age groups” and the creative ways to find a way to create those bonds in such a fun and engaging way. The focus of the intrasquad meets is strengthening connections between the age groups, hosting the meet primarily for younger kids although older kids do swim in it. At the intersquad, older kids get five or so kids to take under their wing. Through activities such as creating team cheers, walking them up to the block, and celebrating best times, kids are able to create better friendships and healthier relationships with swimming. Bennett looks as an opportunity to give back, recalling “when you’re a little kid swimming, you see all these older kids swimming and they seem so much older… Now we’re the older kids and it’s so much fun to hang out with the younger kids and hype them up.” Transitioning from the student to teacher in a long standing team tradition as they transition to new eras of growing up.
The team is also building new traditions surrounding one of the most beloved meets in the state, Minnesota State Championships. As both Hadley and Bennett prepare to compete this weekend, they shared information about one of the new activities their team has implemented this past spring. In March following a new addition to the coaching staff, the state championship team hosted a team meeting every night to build morale and excitement coming into competition time. With a small team of eight people, they went to local stores to purchase small meaningful gifts that could be displayed on the podium. A teammate also began a tradition of toy boats on the podium. A collection that began with one swimmer and three boats, the team has caught on to the obsession and now goes thrift hunting together to expand the fleet. One of them is named “Caleb” after American swimmer Caleb Dressel, and the rest of the boats share a similar theme of being named after olympic swimmers. The boats are used as a unique way to celebrate making podiums for relays at state, so be sure to be on the lookout for any mini ships this weekend.
Aside from teammates they love dearly, the duo also enjoys having a built in training partner through each other. Hadley and Bennett share the same schedule: same school, same swim, same workplace. Knowing each other so closely, they’re able to gather insights from each other on all the aspects that go into greatness inside and out of the pool. They discuss things such as current training, plans for lifts and other dryland, as well as struggles they may have balancing life as busy teenagers. Ultimately they know they can count on one another to keep each other accountable. Hadley explains “sometimes one of us doesn’t feel like going to a 5:45 am practice, and the other one keeps us in check, saying ‘you gotta go’” Swimming has an influence on the entire family, sometimes swapping vacations for meets. Hadley “wants to be there for the team, but also for ourselves, because it’s so much fun.” Despite occasional quarrel over who gets music on the way to practice (Hadley loving Taylor Swift, while Bennett leans more toward rap and Bruno Mars), there is ultimately more gain in having support from a loved one. Bennett says his favorite part about sharing the pool with his sister is “having a mutual thing that we do, and the accountability pushes me to go and try my best because I know everyone else is too.” Hadley is grateful for her brother as “it’s nice knowing it’s not just you at every practice.”