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Ava Peguese:
Welcome back to the podcast! This week we discuss Valentine's day advice with an asu couple.
Connor Greenwall:
Also, we talk about the ASU Swim and Dive team with a journalist who specializes in those sports
Ava Peguese:
I'm Ava Peguese.
Connor Greenwall:
I’m Connor Greenwall, and this is State Press Play.
Ava Peguese:
Hello everyone! Today I am here with Eva Echeveste and Benny Escobar. Eva is a sports journalism major in her freshman year, and Benny is an accounting major in his first year. The pair has been nominated as an iconic couple here at asu. Eva and Benny, how did it all start? How did you guys meet?
Eva Echeveste:
So we met our sophomore year and in algebra class, and like, the first week of school, he wasn't in my class, but then he, like, kind of transferred in, and he his assigned seat was, like, next to me. And so like, we kind of just said hi and stuff. And like, we were, like, friendly with each other, but like, we weren't like, besties like that, until junior year, we had another class together, and he was the only person I knew in that class. I was like, okay, familiar face. No mask this time. He's kind of cute. And so I was like, I should talk to this guy even more. And then I did, and look at us now
Benny Escobar:
and to add to that, so when we were in our history class, I just decided to give her a nice little compliment on her fit, because she was wearing a nice fit.
Ava Peguese:
What was she wearing? Do you remember?
Benny Escobar:
Oh, she was wearing, like, a tank, I think how? No, you called it, like, black and white shirt.
Eva Echeveste:
Like a flannel.
To hear more from Eva and Benny, please tune in to State Press Play.
Connor Greenwall:
I’m here with Casey McNulty. She is a sophomore studying sports journalism, and she is the host of the devil's dynamic podcast covering ASU swim and dive, as well as being the digital media intern and team photographer for ASU swim and dive. Casey to get started, can you just tell me a bit about yourself?
Casey McNulty:
Yeah, I think that's honestly probably one of the hardest questions you could have started out with. But I think part of my identity, just as like the for ASU swim and dive at least, is I started out as a swimmer. I swam for 12 years. I came to ASU actually after swimming collegiately at another college for a semester, and I came here for the sole purpose of covering ASU swim and dive like that's what I wanted to do. I knew Cronkite was a good school, so yeah, just swims a huge part of me. I'm from a small town in Indiana called Munster, about 30 minutes outside of Chicago. I have a brother at home, and I have two cats that I really, really love, and my whole family is kind of they've always been involved in sports, and I think that's how I got involved in it too, especially swimming. My mom swam, so kind of took after her for that one, and my brother did too. So, yeah, I would honestly say that's that's probably the most interesting thing about me is that I swam
Connor Greenwall:
When you came here to ASU, were you planning on being a swimmer?
Casey McNulty:
You know, I came here because I knew that there was something special being built in the swim program, especially with how the men's team won the national championship, or at the time when I was transferring, I knew that they were on that path, so I always came with the intention of covering the team, because I was not ever going to be fast enough to be one of the swimmers, as much as I would have liked to be a D1 athlete for the Sun Devils, I feel like I'm kind of that now, in my own way, being the team photographer, because I get to travel with them. I'm really close with the swimmers. I talk to them all the time, and just getting to cover the team is probably more than I could ask for, because I get kind of, like, all the perks of being an athlete without actually having to put any like physical work into my job, which is, I mean, it's kind of funny, but I really wouldn't have it any other way.
Connor Greenwall:
Outside of, like, the Olympics every four years. I can't say I'm one to really follow swimming. So could you maybe describe like, what's that like? What's like a college swimming season like?
Casey McNulty:
Yeah so a typical college swim season runs from October to literally the first of April, and throughout that time, you're going to have maybe, like eight to 10 dual meets against other teams. You might have two meets within that season that are huge invitationals. So like more you're competing against more than one team. And then, of course, at the end of the season, that's where conference and NCAA come into play. And when these swimmers are training throughout the season, they're not always going to be performing at their best, because they're training really hard, like, You got to get your endurance up. You have to, you know, like, put in the yardage to see those results when it comes to conference at NCAA. So during these meets, swimmers are putting up fast times, in my opinion, but it's not, you know, not, not as fast as I could go until the end of the season. So, you know, coming up the next big meet, besides the Arizona dual meet on Saturday for swim and dive, is big 12. So that's at the end of February. It's actually, I think it's a five day meet, four or five day meet, so it's pretty lengthy. They're actually going to swim both events twice, so they'll swim prelims and finals for all the events. And that's when they're really going to start backing off on training, because that's where they have to swim fast, and that's what you have to do in the sport. It's this thing called taper. I think track does it as well. It's like, you back off, and then you're, you get faster because your muscles have more rest. So that's what they're going to do for big twelves, and then NCAA as well. So they're gonna have to build back up, kind of, you know, get those muscles tired again, and then rest them a little bit. But yeah, that's, that's pretty much what the swim season's like. There's not a whole lot of competitions. I mean, just eight to 10 compared to other sports. You know, softball has like 35th like 30 to 50 games. Sometimes they play baseball too, so there's not many opportunities. And I also think, like, that's what makes the sport kind of tougher, in a way, because you only have a limited amount of chance. Is to kind of perform at your best.
To hear more from Casey, please tune in to State Press Play.
Ava Peguese: And that’s all for this week’s State Press Play. I’m Ava Peguese.
Connor Greenwall: And I’m Connor Greenwall. State Press Play is produced by our podcast desk editor, Kylie Saba. Our original music is by Ellie Willard and Jake LaRoux.
Ava Peguese: Special thanks to our managing team, Morgan Kubasko and Matthew Marengo.
Connor Greenwall: You can check out all these stories and more on statepress.com. See you next week
