Like a fish to water

Do you remember what you wanted to do when you were in kindergarten?
Stewart Bush wanted to change the face of Hannibal swimming.
Saturday, he might just do that.
As the only school in Northeast Missouri with a boys’ swimming program, the Pirate team is the sole representative for the area. As the only qualifier for the Pirates, that responsibility gets whittled down that much more, going to Bush. But he likes that sort of pressure.
“I’ve been doing it for so long, it feeds the fire,” Bush said. “It gets me going.”
For the fourth year in a row, Bush will be headed to St. Peters to compete in the Missouri state high school boys’ swimming meet, this time in the 100-yard butterfly, 100-yard backstroke and 200-yard individual medley.
“It feels great right now,” he said. “For the past three years, this is the moment that I’ve been training for. I’m pretty happy where I’m at right now.”
And when Bush says that he’s been training, he means it. Leading up to this weekend, the senior swimmer was putting in as many as three practices a day, reaching the point where he is practically swimming in his sleep.
“I lay down at night and I visualize being at the meet and going through the whole race,” he said. “I get up and I have medals on my walls and reminders – posters of Michael Phelps, the national team – and I’m like, ‘There you go. That’s what you want to do.’”
If history is any indicator of the future, then Bush could have a taste of Phelps-like success on the high school level.
In his first year, Bush took 16th in his one event, the 100-yard butterfly. During take two, he added the 100-yard backstroke, taking 13th in that event and tenth in the butterfly. Last year, he continued his improvement and took ninth in both the backstroke and butterfly. With that sort of acceleration, Bush believes a top-three placing is not out of the question.
Neither does Kristen Shores, head coach for the Hannibal boys’ swimming team. And she would know. Shores has been watching Bush swim since he was 5 years old.
“When I was younger, I was on the Y team as well,” Shores said. “He was just starting out and I was middle school-aged. I just remembered him being a small boy, but being very athletic and knowing that he stood out, even that young.”
Shores said it was Bush’s seriousness, competitive nature and natural talent that made him stand out early on, all of which, she said, he will need as he heads into this weekend’s meet.
The most important thing, Bush said, will be how well he lets everything go during the hours leading up to the actual races.
“It’s going to take a lot of focus - just zoning out and going through the mental preparation,” Bush said. “It’s like they say – 90 percent mental, 10 percent physical. It really is. If you go into a race thinking ‘This race is going to be hard and it is going to take a lot out of me,’ it will.
The senior captain of his team who keeps a playlist stocked with Fort Minor and Linkin Park says music is an important tool when he wants to zone out just moments before he takes his place on the block.
Just don’t expect to do much communicating with him.
“I’ll go over to the bullpen, start stretching out, getting loose,” he said. “From there on, I just kind of blank out and it’s just go time.”
Regardless of where Bush places this weekend, he said he is happy to have spent the last four years doing what he loves.
Not that it ends here. Bush said he plans to continue both his academic and aquatic endeavors at Lindenwood University, where he plans to play on the men’s water polo team and compete for the swimming team.
“It’s going to be really cool,” Bush said. “I’m really pumped about it.”