Sparkes balancing, school, sports in second season in pool for MUN

Sparkes, the 19-year-old son of Corner Brook’s Sandra and Wendell Sparkes, is in his sophomore season with the Memorial University Sea-Hawks.

He joined the Sea-Hawks last season and his best performance at the Atlantic University Sport championships was a fifth-place finish in the 100 metre freestyle in a field of 16 swimmers with several of them among the most experienced swimmers at the meet.

Yes, that was great news for him. He was just happy to be named to the travel team, so putting in a respectable showing in his AUS debut told him his hard work paid dividends.

This year, he said, coach Chris Roberts is challenging his athletes to think bigger by pushing for standard qualifying times for the Canadian Intercollegiate Sport championships.

Seeing his swimmers stack up with the best in the country, not just the AUS, is something Sparkes believes will motivate everyone to do better and push their teammates to take their game to another level.

“That’s what we all should be pushing for,” he said.

Sparkes found it tough adjusting to life as a Sea-Hawk when he joined the team last season. He had his big brother Nicholas, a member of the team for four seasons, around to show him the way so he had a lot of help adjusting to a hectic grind while working on his studies in process engineering.

With one year under his belt, the 6-3 swimmer is breathing a little easier this year in the pre-season. He has become better with his time management and knows what it takes to be a good student-athlete.

“Now that I’m in the groove, and I know how university works, I can focus and take the workload better … which gives me more time for training and the gym to get bigger, faster and stronger,” he said.

Get faster with every swim and put in the work it takes to be successful.

Know when to take a break.

Know when to pick up the pace.

It’s life as a student-athlete and he’s doing fine as he prepares to shoot for bigger things in the pool.