Swimming is one of just a handful of high school sports in which participants aren’t associated with a jersey number.
Sports ranging from basketball to football to softball all identify athletes by their number. Even sports without assigned jersey numbers will affiliate certain players with numbers, with examples being seeds in tennis, lanes in track and field, and weight classes in wrestling.
Despite not having an assigned number, North Surry senior Cassidy Hull is proud to be known as No. 26 in the swimming world.
By signing her NCAA National Letter of Intent with Mars Hill University, Hull became the 26th PAC swimmer to continue their career in the pool after high school.
Hull first joined PAC, short for Piedmont Aquatic Club, in sixth grade. PAC founders Jeff and Leah Tunstall said they knew Cassidy was special as soon as she joined the club.
“She came in like a firecracker. I had never met her before, but I can tell right away that she has a lot of drive and a lot of potential,” Leah said. “The true dedication from the very beginning has not waivered at all. It’s always been a steady, constant force driving her along. To be successful in this sport that’s what you have to have.”
Cassidy started swimming competitively at age seven.
“I’ve always done it, and it’s just always helped me with anything I need,” Hull said. “I can take anything back to swimming. School work, anything. It’s just gotten me through everything.”
Hull shined as one of the top local swimmers as she advanced through middle school and joined the team at North Surry High School. She said swimming in college had always been the goal, but was unsure if she’d continue with the sport as her sophomore season winded down.
“Then COVID hit and it make me work even harder,” Hull said. “It made me decide that I wanted to keep doing it.”
“I would add that she also had pretty good role models in front of her that were dedicated too,” Leah said. “They were older but still on the pool deck and she could see that, you know, that was where she eventually wanted to go to when she got to that point.”
Hull echoed Leah’s statement and added that she also wanted to serve as a role model for younger swimmers, such as her younger sister, Claire, and her friends.
Cassidy has qualified for the 1A/2A Swimming and Diving State Championship each year of her high school career. She qualified in two events as a sophomore and junior, and one event as a freshman.
The Tunstalls laughed as Cassidy said she “only” qualified for one event as a freshman, and Jeff was quick to point out how monumental of an accomplishment that was. He also express how that mentality was shared by some of the younger PAC swimmers that Cassidy instructs.
“A lot of her swimmers think its commonplace to do that because they see over and over again people competing at the state championship for their high school team, and it’s not commonplace,” he said. “It’s a big deal to be at that level.”
Cassidy competed in the 200-yard freestyle as a freshman in 2019, then qualified for the 200 and 500 freestyle the following year.
Qualifications for the State Championship Meet changed the following season due to COVID-19. Instead of having 24 qualifying individuals for each event, the N.C. High School Athletic Association only allowed 12. Hull’s odds of reaching the State Championship Meet for a third consecutive season were cut in half.
Hull said, “Last year I was really unsure if I would make it or not, but…” when Leah interjected, saying, “I wasn’t unsure.”
Cassidy ended up qualifying for the 500 freestyle and 200 individual medley as a junior. Hull finished seventh in the 200 IM with a time of 2:18.92, and 12th in the 500 free with a time of 5:36.65. She said she’d like to get back to states for a fourth time, maybe even medaling this time.
As valuable as Hull has been to both PAC and North Surry as a competitor, Jeff believes Cassidy’s most important contributions to the sport have come as a leader.
“That’s one of the things I think really with about any sport is that there’s always a next person to replace them athletically,” Jeff said. “That always happens, but to replace a role model like Cassidy…to have that leadership happening in your program, whether it’s in the high school program here or our year-round program, that makes all the difference.
“There’s going to be someone as fast as her someday,” he continued. “Some 8-year-old girl on our team now is going to be just as fast as her when she grows up. It’s a whole different thing to replace those leadership qualities, and that’s something that I think makes Cassidy special.”
Leah said that Cassidy and a few other PAC swimmers help out with the 5-to-8-year-old tiny PACs, so it’s entirely possible that someone down the line says Coach Cassidy was the one that inspired them to swim in college.
“Someday, No. 30 – or probably No. 40 – might stand up here and say ‘Well, I had Cassidy as a role model. I saw her in the pool all the time. She never missed practice. She had a great attitude.’ All those things, and that is what‘s driving the younger generation of kids,” Leah said.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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