BUCKHANNON, W.Va. – She walked through the front door of the apartment she shares with four other college students carrying a dripping-wet pile of stained, muddy clothes.

Holding the mess at arm’s length, Monica Morin danced into the laundry room and threw the bundle into the washing machine.

After greeting a group of people gathered in the living room, she jumped up the stairs, two at a time, toward her room to change into her typical Sunday college attire: pajamas.

In one corner of her room, a kayak balanced on end against the wall. In another, a board with a roller underneath it invited her to test her ability to maintain balance after a long weekend. The lofted bed in the third corner was neatly made, while in the fourth, nearly behind the door, sat a neat desk with a closed laptop computer.

“This is pretty much it,” said Morin, who then became excited at the sight of the balance-board.

“Check this out,” she said. “Isn’t this cool?”

The fact that Morin had this much energy wouldn’t surprise many people. But add in the four-hour spelunking expedition she had just finished leading and the Longnecker Invitational Swim Meet that she participated in two days earlier, and any energy she was squeezing from her 5-foot, 2-inch frame was remarkable.

“Look at this robe,” Morin continued, still on the balance board. “Isn’t this the greatest thing?”

She pulled from behind the door a full-length cotton robe with writing on the left side signifying that Morin had participated in the 2004 Division II National Swimming and Diving Championships.

She had done more than just participate, however.

Morin, a 2001 graduate of Lewiston High School, finished in the top eight in the 200-yard butterfly, earning All-America status as a junior.

“That’s not even something I thought about,” said Morin. “Really, the All-American thing is something that just happened.”

From the beginning

Morin isn’t a flash-in-the-pan swimmer. Her name still sits beside every individual yardage record at Lewiston four seasons after she set them, and she is part of all but one of the relays that still appear on the board.

“She still has the clean sweep in all of them,” said Lewiston coach Dave Bright. “She was certainly an unusually diverse swimmer, which is a good thing for her. It helps with a solid base in college, being able to swim (individual medleys) and all.”

Even before high school, Morin was swimming locally. In high school she joined Coastal Maine Aquatics in Cape Elizabeth, one of the state’s most successful swimming clubs.

“She was a very dedicated swimmer to the school, even then,” said Bright. “She would swim with the club team before and after our season, since it was so short. She came into school with a natural ability, too, but she never plateaued, like many students do. She managed to get better every year.”

This all despite a small frame. At 5-2, Morin is shorter than the typical swimmer.

“She never used that as an excuse,” said Bright. “She just kept getting better.”

Moving on

Although she was a solid swimmer at Lewiston, her height and her geography hindered her ability to score a Division I scholarship.

“I couldn’t get money at a D-I school at all out of high school,” said Morin. “There was no way. They said I was too small and I wasn’t quick enough.”

At the urging of a close friend, also a swimmer, Morin looked into West Virginia Wesleyan College, a small school in that state’s foothills.

“I contacted the school and the coach at the time, Denton Quick, and he worked to get me a scholarship to swim here,” said Morin. “It is a good school, it has a great student-teacher ratio and it’s in a small community. I like that about it.”

Making waves

Two years later, as a junior, Morin shattered the imaginary barrier that seemed to be holding her back during her first two years.

“My coach had a hard time learning how to taper me,” said Morin.

In swimming, tapering enables an athlete to prepare for a major competition by concentrating workouts to allow time for the muscles to relax and rebuild.

“She’s an extremely internal, natural athlete,” said WVWC coach Paul Mangan. “It did take us a while, until last year at the conference meet, I think, to learn how to taper her, how to concentrate her efforts. When we got to the National Championships last year, we knew how to focus her.”

At that national meet, Morin finished fifth in the 200-yard butterfly. She was also scheduled to compete in the 100 butterfly, but she slipped off the block and was disqualified.

This year, Morin is ahead of her training schedule – again.

“She has a tendency to overtrain,” said Mangan. “I know she’ll disagree with me, but I think she trains too much as it is. She just has to train more event-specific and she’ll be fine.”

“I need to train hard, to be pushed hard,” said Morin. “I train in the morning and in the afternoon around classes.”

And those classes?

Morin will graduate in the spring with an A average in two majors – chemistry and physics.

National implications

Morin already holds three school records at WVWC – the 100 and 200 butterfly and the 400 individual medley. Her legacy is all but assured, with her coach calling her and roommate Monica Heinrich “an impossible pair of swimmers to replace.”

Still, this year’s national championships beckon.

“We can work with her on her turns, and the turn aspect of her fly,” said Mangan. “She always back-halfs her races (the second half faster than the first), and I think if we can get her to get out even faster, and turn faster, that back half will get even faster than it is now.”

At the Longnecker Invitational recently held in Grove City, Pa., Morin clocked a 2:08.23 in the 200 butterfly to win the event. She also placed third in the 100 butterfly (59.82 seconds), second in the 200 IM (2:15.17) and swam a leg in three different relays.

Next up

When Morin’s competitive swimming career ends after this season, her energy and focus will shift to the outdoors.

“I remember going on a field trip in eighth grade, in Mr. Hardy’s class, to Tumbledown Mountain,” said Morin. “That’s what got me interested in the outdoors at first.”

An outdoor fanatic, Morin runs the school’s outdoor exploration group and plans mountain climbing, spelunking and hiking trips. She has also spent summers as a river guide in Oregon, and is an avid kayaker.

“There’s just so much out there,” said Morin. “I know that I don’t want to do anything in chemistry or physics per se when I get out of school. Geology, now that interests me. Maybe I’ll take a year off and work to earn money for grad school, or use something in chemistry or physics to get into geology.”

Swimming may not be in Morin’s plans, but the sport has helped her get where she is now.

“Swimming really has taught me about time management and self-discipline,” said Morin. “I can do a lot of things at once, and I don’t give up, which also come a lot from swimming. It’s just taught me a lot about life in general, but there is so much out there, and it would be a waste if I stopped learning about things.”

Morin’s current times would easily give her a scholarship to most Div. I programs, and her diverse portfolio of activities would be enough to make any admissions officer drool, but those things matter little now, as Morin prepares to graduate with honors in 2005.

“I have no regrets,” said Morin. “There isn’t enough time for that.”