| School: Wilson | Graduation Year: 1979 |
Sports Played: Cross Country, Swimming, Soccer
Year Inducted: 2023
High School Honors: 1 Cross Country letter.
3 Swimming letters. 3-time Swimming Championship Team, 3-time State Champion in 200-yard Individual Medley with record-setting times each year. State Champion in 100-yard breaststroke (record); State Champion 500-yard freestyle; Member State Championship 200-yard medley relay and 400-yard freestyle relay teams.
3 Soccer letters, State Championship Soccer team as a Junior; MVP defense player as Junior.
Academics, tied (first) 4.0 GPA; National Merit Scholar.
Post High School Career: 2 years Swimming at Princeton University. All Eastern, All-Ivy and All-American Teams; set five school records in 1980. 1997 Masters Swimming, several Top 10 individual finishes in National Championships plus a 1st in age/gender mixed relay.
Commentary:
My earliest inspiration for playing competitive sports was my younger sister Susan, who at age 10 set five national swimming records and was recognized in Sports Illustrated. I also enjoyed the organized sports at Riverdale School, which I attended in years 5-8; there, we had a chance to try nearly all sports. My athletic parents (Dad played college football and baseball and wrestled at Oberlin, and Mom was a softball ace) were also very encouraging.
My transition to competitive sports came in 7th grade, when I wanted to quit ballet lessons. I was 5’ 8” or so in a beginning ballet class with much younger girls, and not at all graceful at recitals while my school classmates were adeptly dancing in toe shoes. My mother advised that I could quit ballet once I took up another physical activity; she was not happy with my plan to read and watch TV during my spare time. So, I took up swimming as the older, less talented of the Habernigg sisters, and shortly found out I was pretty good at it. No doubt swimming came easier since I’d spent 4 years playing in the warm waters of Hawaii and Samoa as a child.
I benefitted from supportive coaches on all my teams along the way, and owe special thanks to my Wilson (now Wells) high school swimming coach Ray Conlon for leading us to PIL success with consistent good nature and kindness.
After years of attorney work, I look back fondly on being on strong teams. I learned they work best when everyone has a valued place and teammates support each other, and that people can work together while being very different. And in sports when we lost or had a bad performance, we had to accept the defeat and work to improve. During my adult life, I have been thrilled when able to work on high performing teams, and have worked to be supportive when a teammate was struggling – lessons I learned from sports.
I am very grateful to have this opportunity to relive the memories from a happy time of my life. It has made me recall the many wonderful people I knew so well.