Fort Gibson swimmer works toward big dreams at Rice

By Mike Kays
Phoenix Sports Editor

February 01, 2008 06:45 pm

— No one has to tell Fort Gibson grad Carly Miller how big a difference the college athletics culture is. She’s lived it.
Swimming circles around high school competition was nothing like this.
“We’re in a grind right now,” she said, describing a period of four consecutive weekends of meets. Before that, there was the week-long Christmas holiday team trip to Tampa, Fla., during a period of what’s called “bulk training.”
Bulk training? She describes:
“In Tampa, we had morning and afternoon workouts for two hours each, then weights every other day or dryland work,” she said.
“Dryland work” is pushups, situps, pull-ups and just about any other exercise you can do out of water, especially for abdominal and shoulder work. But in water or out, Miller looks to be doing just fine in her junior year at Rice University, already having turned in a pair of strong years in the pool — she’s working on a third — and hitting the books in one of America’s toughest academic institutions with a major in sports medicine and a minor in business.
There’s probably a lesson there in those textbooks about the type of approach she and the other Rice swimmers take.
“We try to overload their systems without burying them,” Rice coach Seth Huston said. “They’re doing maybe eight training sessions a week and competing one or two days. That’s a lot of racing and training, weight lifting, strength-training stuff.
“It just piles on. Right now we’re in an intense phase, we’re looking at less and less training, more and more recovery and by the time of the conference meet, they’re sharp.”
Last year, Miller earned the Catherine Hannah Award as the Owls’ most outstanding swimmer of the season. She was third at the Conference USA championships in the 50-meter freestyle with a career-best time of 23.31 seconds. Her fifth-place time in the 200 freestyle (1:49.41) was the fourth-fastest in school history. She was also the anchor of the 400 medley relay team, the first relay conference champion in school history. As a freshman, she reached the C-USA championship in both the 200 and 500 freestyle.
The freshman year was the adjustment phase coming out of high school. This, her junior year, is another time of adjustment.
“It’s time to really get myself in gear,” she said.
Which, according to Huston, she has.
“She really hasn’t had the overall performances she had last year from a standpoint of consistent finishes, but she’s trained harder this year than she has in the previous two,” he said. “It’s weird because she’s not as consistent but she’s stronger and more powerful.
“Swimming is one of those sports, though, where you can only peak a few times a year. You want to be ready to compete each week but you may not be ready to swim as good as you’re capable of every week.”
And for Miller, who went from a year of focusing on distance workouts to drills focusing on her main events, the 100 and 200 freestyles, that bodes well. The C-USA meet and her best shot at the NCAA championships is four weeks away and up to now, Huston’s goal for her is to taper, or rest, for a big-time showing at that meet.
“She’s had a couple of times where she’s raced against high-level competition better than she has before,” Huston said. “At the Nike meet at Irvine, Calif., she swam the first leg of the 400 freestyle relay. UCLA led off with a girl that has scored at the NCAA championships, The girl beat her by just a couple of tenths of a second. (Miller) was fast and aggressive, had a great swim.
“At LSU this past week, she won the 50 freestyle with her best time this year, 23.65, and beat a couple of LSU swimmers. Carlyann hasn’t been at NCAA championships yet and she beat at least one among those two who had.”
Swimmers competing at the NCAAs are among the world’s best. Might that naturally lead to consideration of — dare we dream — a shot at the U.S. Olympic team for someone who has proven she can compete at the major college level?
The trials are June 29-July 6.
“Without getting to the NCAAs, that’s not even a concern and getting there is my focus for now,” Miller said. “But to do that going into my senior year, that would be wonderful.”
For Miller, it’s a far different pool that the ones she won state championships in as a Lady Tiger. She also swam club competition in Tulsa.
NCAAs, Olympics or none, a Rice degree carries a lot of gold potential too.

Carly Miller — back then
Carly Miller at FGHS
Freshman year — state champion in the 50 and 100 freestyle.
Sophomore year — state champion in the 500 freestyle and runner-up in the 50 freestyle
Junior year — state champion in the 50 freestyle and runner-up in the 500.
Senior year — set state record in winning the 50 freestyle (23.57) and runner-up in the 100 freestyle.
Of note: Carly’s sister, Brennan, is a three-year starter on the top-ranked FGHS girls basketball team.

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