GV senior Hand furthers swimming career to collegiate level, officially penning commitment letter to D-II’s Roberts Wesleyan College
BELMONT — For most of his life, Gavin Hand has spent his athletic career either hitting the baseball diamond during the spring, or spending the majority of his time making splashdown after splashdown in the swimming pool during the winter season. Whether it’s inside his own school, at Cuba-Rushford in the earlier stages of his career, or across other pools in the area, the Jaguars senior has left a carbon footprint every step of the way.
A couple of weeks ago before the Coronavirus outbreak on March 5, he made sure that swimming remained in his future.
Inside the confines of the swimming pool with his coaches, and alongside his parents Deanna and Tim, Hand penned his next chapter of his athletic career in the water, as he officially signed the dotted line to further his education, as well as his remarkable swimming career on the Division II collegiate level, trading in the green and white colors of the Genesee Valley faithful, for the red and black belonging to the Roberts Wesleyan College Redhawks beginning next winter.
The three-year team captain for the Jaguars has spent six years as a Varsity swimmer for the Jaguars, where in every single year, he has qualified to compete for a Section V championship. From 2016 to this past season, Hand was a Sectional finalist, including garnering second and third place finishes in the 200 yard and 500 yard freestyle events respectively at the Section V Championships. Even though he finished in the runner-up position, he did manage to bring some hardware home along the way, becoming an Allegany/Steuben County Swim League champion in the 200 yard freestyle.
When it was all said and done, the four-time Allegany/Steuben County All-Star swam over 24 miles up and down in the pool, a newly-founded number that now stands as a team record.
“I am very happy to see Gavin continue his swimming career at the college level at Roberts,” Jaguars swim coach Shawn Clancy said. “It has been very nice having a swimmer of Gavin’s caliber on my team these past couple of years. He can swim any event for the team, which makes it a lot easier whenever I try to set up a swim lineup. I am more than confident that he will excel at the next level. I am definitely looking forward to tracking his progress.”
Along with his resume as an experienced Varsity swimmer for the Jags, Hand spent nearly his entire life with USA Club Swimming, spending a dozen of his years breaking record after record since he was eight years old. from the freestyle events to the butterfly and backstroke events, and even an individual medley event, Hand holds 10 total records with the USA club that still stand to this day for a team he swam an additional 38.5 miles for.
When you do the math, the Genesee Valley senior has accumulated over 110,000 yards, or 62.5 total miles in his immaculate swimming career. His former coach, Brian Edmister, says he’s a pupil that would spend the majority of his time getting better each and every practice in the water.
“I had the pleasure of starting Gavin on his path to swimming,” he said. “I believe he was in Kindergarten when he first learned to swim competitively. Every day, we would work technique for 80 percent of the practice. 10 percent was strength training, and the other 10 percent was just pure fun. Gavin’s strokes have come along nicely, and as he moved into seventh grade, we started working to pass the Varsity test. After a lot of work, he made that milestone and started his career as a middle and distance swimmer. His times consistently improved, and he was a solid, clutch swimmer. Many times he was up against kids three or four years older, he has held his own. Those first few years Gavin swam on a combined team with Cuba until we got our own team. It was a pleasure to coach Gavin. He will continue to do well.”
Hand will begin his journey at Roberts Wesleyan College next winter, where he will mark his first footprints on the college campus while working his hardest to major in Sports Management, with a concentration in Marketing.
He would like to recognize all of his coaches that has helped him along his journey every step of the way, including Clancy, Edmister, Lisa Clark-Hapeman and Brian Edmister II at Genesee Valley, as well as Jeremy Watson, Deb Coble, Joe Mariotti, Andrew Edmister, Steve Hand and Megan Billings with the USA Club.
In other signing news, Cuba-Rushford senior Kyle Wittenrich will also continue his education and athletic career this upcoming Fall, but on the Division I level, as he officially committed this past month to join the football program at Robert Morris.
