By Jillian Johnson
SPORTS EDITOR
Six-feet, 4-inches tall with large hands and feet that help him glide quickly through the water, Lancer of the Week David Ring, sophomore criminal justice major on the men’s swimming and men’s water polo team, lives to be active outdoors as he trains hard to achieve personal records in both the 200-yard and 100-yard freestyle this season.
Ring, a Lodi, Calif., native started his season strong on Oct. 5, scoring 74 points for California Baptist University’s men’s swimming team during the Pacific Coast Swim Conference Pentathlon at Loyola Marymount University.
Currently, Ring is swimming the 200-yard freestyle in 146.7 seconds, but by the end of the season he is looking to cut his time down to 138 seconds. In the 100-yard freestyle, Ring is training to take his 46.81-second time to a high of 44 seconds.
Between swimming and water polo, Ring has grown up participating in water sports since he was old enough to swim.
This year marks Ring’s second season as a multi-sport athlete, as he is a member of both the men’s water polo team as well as the men’s swim team.
“There are only three guys who both swim and play water polo,” said Robert Nichols, men’s swimming captain and senior psychology major. “It is extremely hard to do what David is doing as a student-athlete.”
In order to prepare for the grueling seasons, Ring said the swim team does a lot of cross-training during their intensive training week. Aside from pool workouts, the team runs, does yoga exercises, as well as participates in a weight lifting program.
“We are definitely improving as a team, especially coming from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics to the Nation- al Collegiate Athletic Association Division II,” Ring said.
“We are picking up a lot of faster swimmers. The team is definitely building.”
Ring originally looked at CBU because his dad played water polo with Rick Rowland, head coach of CBU’s swimming team and men’s water polo team, at Pepperdine University.
“(CBU) is a diamond in the rough,” Ring said. “It’s a super nice school in the middle of nowhere.”
Riverside, though a large city, does not supply Ring with much he enjoys doing when he decides to get off campus such as going to sports events or participating in activities outdoors.
“As a swimmer (Ring) is very versatile,” Rowland said. “He has won the 100- yard freestyle two weeks in a row at our swim meets during the middle of water polo season. He has posted two of the top-100 free times in CBU history in the past two weeks.”
Record-breaking times already under his belt, Ring remains humble in his pursuit to achieve new records.
