Hard work paying off for Chokran

Think first how good Angie Chokran was last year as a freshman on the St. Charles North girls swimming team.

She was a member of all three North Stars state qualifying relay teams and helped the 200-yard medley relay finish third.

Now think how good Chokran is already this year. She finished second in the 200-yard individual medley in the hotly-contested Neuqua Valley Invitational.

If you're looking to connect the dots between November, 2006 and September, 2007, you need to consider an awful lot of time in the water. When a lot of students and a surprising number of swimmers took time to relax and enjoy themselves, Chokran was swimming, proving the age-old adage swimming results are almost always directly proportional to the amount of work an athlete puts in.

"My summer really consisted of a lot of swimming," Chokran said. "It's my passion. I don't know how I'd be able to live without it."

Chokran achieved some great results through her work with the St. Charles Swim Club. But there are a number of aspects to being on a team, and she reveled in all of them.

"Being in shape year-round is a definite advantage," Chokran said. "Probably the best part of swimming year round is staying close with the girls and the team and having a deeper relationship. When you start the season, you're not asking 'How was your summer?' You know. We're closer as friends."

There has been a succession of springboards to the kind of swimmer Chokran is today. Finishing third as a freshman doesn't hurt. She also swam well under the state qualification cutoff in the spring.

"She had the chance to be an All-American as a freshman," St. Charles North coach Rob Rooney said. "That built through the club swimming season. A lot of things happened to her that ended up being a win-win. I look at her and how she learned how to train how to conduct herself."

Rooney said the benefits Chokran saw could be realized by any swimmer who wanted to give the effort. If he's a zealot for year-round training, you might excuse that as he's a swimming coach. But he's not just talking about state champions or the most-elite athletes.

"There can only be one high school state champion in an event and there's only one team state champion," Rooney said. "But there's hundreds of kids who have lifetime bests who you never read about. Each one of those is an individual victory.

"Some kids, the best they can be is state champion. For others, the best they might achieve is state meet qualification. For others, the best might be to be a junior-varsity swimmer. But everyone can be their best and training year-round helps them reach that level."

And sometimes swimmers find themselves as their careers progress. One of those was Kaylee Jamison, who didn't begin to blossom individually until her junior year, then finished her career with a stellar senior season.

Jamison achieved more than that. She was named the Wendy's High School Heisman Award winner -- an award given for her combination of athletic and academic prowess.

Chokran was on-deck with Jamison all year, and she wasn't just gawking. She was learning.

"Kaylee was my role model throughout the entire season," Chokran said. "I looked to her as I built my own leadership and learned how to be a better role model to the incoming freshmen -- or even to help some of the older girls to push them harder in practice to get things done."

That role model may be gone, but she's hardly forgotten.

"We talk to her frequently," Chokran said. "She's coming back for homecoming so maybe she'll come to a practice or two. But we're getting there without her."

Rooney sees Chokran's on-deck improvement as well.

"I think we've started to see some results from her," Rooney said. "We've seen them in her character and her loyalty. She's developing some leadership traits you don't see out of a sophomore."

Then there was that individual medley swim at the Neuqua Valley meet, a swim Rooney thinks could be "the defining moment of the season for her."

"She went a time that she hadn't achieved yet," Rooney said. "She got up and raced her heart out. We told her that we knew she had a good breaststroke. But she showed that she can work the backstroke. She lost it in her legs toward the end, but she showed that belief in herself."

Chokran sees that I.M. improving through the season.

"We wanted to see how well I could do with it and I was experimenting with it," Chokran said. "I know I can do well with the breaststroke. It's cool to play around with different things.

So does that mean a breaststroke-I.M. combination is in store for Chokran when the sectional meet rolls around this season?

"Nothing is official until Rooney says so," Chokran said. "We're thinking about everything, depending how well I do in practice and in meets."

That kind of effort should come easily for Chokran. After all, she's proved it's a year-round part of her makeup.