A still-growing powerhouse in MIAC Swimming, Gustavus Adolphus College is the next team to get an off-season breakdown. With a roster size just as large as it is talented, this team, led by Jon Carlson, has been one of the premier teams to beat in the conference for quite some time now. With several consecutive men’s championship titles in the past few years, and top-three finishes from both teams littered throughout the previous two decades under Carlson, this is a formidable program that won’t be going anywhere soon. Carlson spoke about how the team seeks to stay atop the mountain and what helps them succeed.
Gustavus’ massive team size will not be getting any smaller this season, as the team graduated under 30 athletes and is bringing in 36 this coming season. In regard to his departing seniors, Carlson said, “It’s not like they were just numbers in our program, they were some of the best swimmers we’ve ever had, school record holders… and they were excellent leaders, they all filled a role.” Obviously, this is clear in the results from 2023, with the men as reigning champs again, and the women coming in an extremely close, hard-fought second place to fellow juggernaut St. Kates, who have also repeated championships the past few years.
The aforementioned leadership was a unique point as well, as Carlson told me that Gustavus has all of their seniors take a leadership role, along with a junior captain for each gender that will help transition things and take charge by the time they become seniors, having learned how the leadership group works. His outgoing class was a standout group with this system, and Carlson said, “Every once in a while you get lucky and have all sorts of different personalities in your leadership group that covers just about anything that will come up, from the workers, the people that will get stuff done, to the people who are good at one on ones, to the people who are good at firing up the team when they need it.”
Carlson is confident that his new senior group will follow in those footsteps well, though, along with his new class of recruits bolstering the performance in the pool as well. “I think (the rising seniors) will do an outstanding job, they learned a lot this year from a good senior leadership group… and we really brought in some good people, quality, and depth as well.” With the team ever-growing, I wondered beyond his leadership group, what Carlson does to try and keep the team as close and committed as possible despite its size.
He told me that they strip it down to the basics, and he really makes sure that each athlete understands how to be a positive part of the team and look out for one another. “I think everybody wants to be a good teammate, it’s just not everybody came from a great team, and so I think it’s my responsibility to help teach what it means to be a good teammate, we take a one weekend… just going over what a good teammate looks like, how do you treat each other, and I think that’s good,” said Carlson. So far, it seems his system has proved successful, yielding a large group of athletes that buys in and has brought home plenty of conference hardware.
With the season looming, Carlson was eager to try and continue this success, but also looking forward to the coming competition. Several teams seem to be rising to the challenge of teams like his, and he told me, “We’re excited for the season, I think the conference will be even more competitive this year than it was last year… St. John’s is going to be really ready to go this year, and Carleton had a great end to their championship meet last spring, so it should be a great battle for the MIAC championship. On the women’s side, St. Kate’s is obviously still the favorite, but I hope we’re in the mix… and I expect Macalester, Carleton, St. Olaf and St. Ben’s to be in the mix as well, so it should be a great conference this coming season.” So swim fans, strap in for what is sure to be an exciting year in the MIAC!