Ewing High’s Micah Bergstrom is The Times’ Male Athlete of the Week.
His favorite school subjects are math and history, and for Micah Bergstrom their effects reach from the classroom to the pool.
The numbers are dropping for Bergstrom who is making history at Ewing High School. Bergstrom, a junior, is the owner of eight school records. He’s the best of the Blue Devils, and he wants his teammates to excel in the pool, too.
“Micah is the strongest and most versatile swimmer to swim for the Blue Devils in many years,” head coach Stef Harrison said. “He is willing to swim anything that we need him in, and always does so to the best of his ability. Not only that, but he often works with beginning swimmers in practices to help them learn new strokes and skills, and he has a real knack for teaching. We have absolutely loved having him as a part of our program, and his influence goes well beyond his speed in the pool.”
Bergstrom is The Times’ Male Athlete of the Week. He helped the Blue Devils post their first victory of the season, a long-awaited win over Trenton.
“It’s a different mindset on our team,” he said. “It’s much more about having fun, getting in shape and trying to improve on our times and not trying to win meets against teams that have tons more people than we do. It’s everybody against the clock, trying to do their best.“
Being successful has its good points, too.
“It is good to win every now and then,” Bergstrom said.
Bergstrom makes a habit of doing his best as a member of the Blue Devils and also the Eastern Express swim programs.
“I can do multiple events and succeed in all of them,” he said referring to the swim club.
He does multiple events and has a lot of success for Ewing, too.
His coach says he has the top times for his school in the 200 freestyle (2:01.17), 200 individual medley (2:08.27), 50 free (23.69), 100 butterfly (56.84), 100 free (53.30), 500 free (5:18.46), 100 backstroke (1:06.13) and 100 breaststroke (1:07.17).
He says his favorite event is the 100 fly, which is one of the events he will swim at the Mercer County Championships this week.
He explored other sports, but he found his niche in swimming.
“I played baseball for a couple of years; I did track in middle school; I tried basketball,” Bergstrom said. “I learned to swim when I was (age) 8. I joined a swim team, locally, during the summertime. It just kind of clicked with me. It was something I was kind of good at. It escalated from there.”
He enjoys helping others who are trying to latch on to the sport especially his teammates at Ewing.
“I actually help out during our practices,” Bergstrom said. “I’ll help coach with the people who are more new to swimming. I help them as they are trying to learn their strokes, and flip turns.”
He has a long list of goals, and coaching is on it. Being a good teammate has been a lifelong goal.
“Our Express teams have swimmers from all over,” said Bergstrom as he listed towns in Mercer, Somerset, Hunterdon and other counties. “I’ll cheer for them, too, but I’ll race against them and try to beat them in meets, too.”
Contact Mary Ann Tarr at matarr@njtimes.com