With two parents who swam in high school, Ellie and Isaac Proffitt might have been destined to follow in their footsteps.
But while Ellie decided to swim at Columbus East, her father Mike’s alma mater, her brother Isaac went in a different direction this fall and headed to archrival Columbus North. Tuesday, they’ll be on opposite sides of the pool when the Olympians visit the Bull Frogs for their annual dual-meet competition.
“My whole family besides my mom went to East, so I was kind of like, ‘Why not? Let’s try North,’” said Isaac, a freshman. “Also, coach Logan (Schaefer) at North and Donner (Swim Club), I really liked his coaching. I thought he was a great coach, and I wanted to stick with him throughout my high school career. Then, I just liked the setting of North.”
Ellie, a junior at East, has been one of the Olympians’ top girls swimmers the past two years.
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“I went to the school tour when I was in eighth grade, and something just felt right,” Ellie said. “I just walked in, and I was like, ‘This is the school I wanted to be at,’ and (assistant) coach Carrie (Utterback) was my coach when I was young and just learning, and she had known me for awhile, and I had known her.”
Although both Ellie and Isaac started swimming at age 5, they took different paths to where they are now. Ellie started competitively with Donner when she was 9. Isaac gave up swimming to play baseball, football, basketball for a couple years and still plays lacrosse, but resumed swimming at age 12.
Their mother, Kathleen, who swam at West Chester (Ohio) Lakota near Cincinnati, said she didn’t have to push Ellie, Issac or their younger daughter Abby, 12, a sixth-grader at St. Bartholomew, into swimming.
“For (Ellie), we were swimming over at Foundation For Youth, and she just had a natural ability about her in the water,” Kathleen said. “You could see a lot of natural technique, and she had a lot of power behind her pull. I think Isaac, for him, because I was also coaching, it just fell in line that he got around the pool a little more often, so he ended up joining us in the water.”
Kathleen comes from a swimming family. One of her older sisters even coached her in club swimming
“When you’re the youngest of seven, and you have older siblings who swim, and you working parents, you just kind of get immersed into it,” Kathleen said. “We just all kind of got involved in swimming in some manner.”
Ellie was a part of East’s 200-yard medley relay team that set a school record last year. She also usually swims the 200 individual medley and 100 butterfly and either the 200 freestyle relay or 400 freestyle relay.
Ellie missed the Olympians first meet of the season while in quarantine because of contract tracing and didn’t have enough practices in by their second meet on Thursday. So she will make her season debut on Tuesday at North.
“High school season is a really good time for me to enjoy being with my friends and just enjoy the sport,” Ellie said. “High school season has been a lot of fun. It’s been nice, but I’ve just really enjoyed the companionship and the friendship I get from the sport.”
Isaac scored in the 200 freestyle in the Bull Frogs’ season opener at Franklin, scored in both the 200 freestyle and 100 backstroke against North Central and scored in the 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke Saturday at Center Grove. He also has swam the 200 medley and 400 freestyle relays
“We’ve had great competition,” Isaac said. “Franklin and North Central are really strong teams, big teams, and I think it was a great opportunity for freshman swimmers to really get a feel for what it’s going to be like. It was really great for me because it’s a quick, fast-paced meet, and I was not expecting that.”
Isaac hopes to help the Bull Frogs win a sectional title as a team and send several swimmers to state. Individually, he wants top-three finishes in all of his events at the sectional.
“I have a pretty good feeling I can do that, and then for the 500, I’m hoping I can get that down to a 5-minute flat and in the 100 back, I’m just trying to go under 1:00 and hopefully try to keep up with (senior teammate and Indiana University recruit) Christopher Lee,” Isaac said.
Both Ellie and Isaac are hoping to swim in college.
“I’m really looking at the 50 free and the 100 fly to try to get those (records), but I think this season is just about really working at it,” Ellie said. “It’s my junior year, so it’s scouting year, so it’s really important for me to start working at those best times and getting known. If I get a record, that would be great.”
Even if they don’t get records or personal-best times, their parents are proud of them.
“They’re talented,” Mike said. “They put a lot of time and effort into it, and that shows a lot of grit to me. They do well. They work hard. It’s fun to watch them. Even when they don’t do good, they don’t really fall back. They kind of just keep moving forward.”
Mike said it could get a little crazy sometimes when the kids were swimming for Donner and they were different age groups and swimming at different times. Now that they’re competing for different high schools, it can be a lot of meets for him and Kathleen to try to attend.
Because of a limit on crowd sizes due to COVID-19, only one parent normally is allowed to attend most meets this season. They’re hoping both can attend for Tuesday’s North-East battle.
“In that capacity, either Mike or I will be there to watch,” Kathleen said. “We hope everything will fall into place so the meet will take place. It’s really about them having the opportunity to swim and to be able to compete because this season has been just so different all the way around.”
