Stafford Has Come A Long Way Since Leaving Kansas
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | Women's Swimming & Diving, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – When she looks back is when Shara Stafford can clearly see the distance she has covered in three years.
Since leaving her headlining role for a small swim club in Topeka, Kan., the path traveled by Stafford is much longer than the distance she covers regularly in the pool as a 50 and 100 freestyle specialist for the UF women's swim team.
“My club was kind of a unique situation,'' said Stafford, a junior who helped the Gators' women win the 2010 national championship. “I trained mostly with people that were 4 years younger than me. They were at a different point in their lives. If I did weights or dry-land [training] or anything, it was all on my own.''
Nowadays, Stafford trains in some of the finest facilities of any program in the nation and it shows by her performance in the pool. She is one of the leaders on a team that opens the 2010 season this weekend in the All-Florida Invitational starting Friday. As a sophomore, you could say Stafford came into her own.
She earned six All-American honors and was a member of UF's 200-free relay team that won the national championship. Stafford also broke school records at the NCAA finals in the 50- and 100-yard free events, her time in the 100 free eclipsing her mark in the SEC meet that broke an 18-year-old school record.
After missing the NCAAs her freshman season due to an injury suffered in the Southeastern Conference meet, Stafford capped her sophomore season in special fashion as her parents, Sarah and Terry, and a pair of nieces made the 10-hour drive from their Topeka home to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., to watch her compete.
Stafford didn't disappoint, helping the Gators win their first national title in 28 years and stamping her place in the program's history.
UF coach Gregg Troy sees Stafford just beginning to reach her full potential as one of the Gators' most accomplished returnees this season.
“Shara Stafford is a great all-around athlete,'' Troy said. “When she gets a little more confident, she could be one of the best in the NCAA.''
Growing up the youngest of three siblings, Stafford quickly emerged as the family's best athlete. To keep the kids active in the summer, Sarah and Terry enrolled all three kids in a swim club that usually practiced on Wednesday nights.
Before long, Shara was the star of the local pool, easily beating other kids her age in competitions.
“Shara is just a natural athlete,'' Terry Stafford said. “I think she could probably have played about any sport she wanted.''
For a while, she played softball, but Stafford felt most at home in the pool. When it was time for college, she knew to continue to develop and perhaps fulfill a long-term goal of competing in the Olympics, she had to up her level of competition.
“She had always been the fastest around here, and she wanted to go to a place where there were other kids faster to kind of help push her,'' Terry said.
“I come from a little club in Kansas that nobody has ever heard of,'' Stafford said. “So, I kind of came here and was in for a shock. Coming from not very much training, and being as good as I could be with the limited resources and time that I had, I was able to really improve a lot after I came here.
“Everything that you could possibly want to become a great athlete is provided for you here on this campus. Just to have everything available to me if I wanted it, it's just kind of, 'Are you going to take advantage of it?' So, I finally realized that maybe I could go somewhere with this. I finally took advantage of it and it's brought me a long ways.''
The pinnacle so far came when she was on the medal stand at the NCAAs with her family in the stands beaming as they looked on. Soon afterward, Stafford took time off before competing in the U.S. Nationals over the summer, her best finish a 24th-place showing in the 200 free.
With her junior season set to start, Stafford is working toward more moments like the Gators experienced last season and earlier this month when they visited the White House and were introduced on the field at a sold-out Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Saturday during the UF-Kentucky football game.
“It's pretty hard to top what we did last year as a team,'' she said. “We reached the ultimate achievement as a team. There are a few things I would like to change, place a little higher. Not doing as well as I had planned [at the U.S. Nationals] kind of gave me more motivation now to try to better myself and increase my training and see what I can do.''
Terry Stafford has seen his daughter prove doubters wrong before, so he won't be surprised if she surpasses last year's accomplishments.
“I always thought she had more talent that what we were seeing,'' Terry said. “She had a good coach here when she was here, but you go to a major university, and you've got nutritionists, you've got a weight coach, strength training, and you've coaches who have years and years of experience at a high level.
“It's really been good for her.''
Troy has seen it all from the side of the pool. He can't wait to see what Stafford does next.
“She has just matured tremendously since her freshman year,'' Troy said. “She came in as a tall, lanky girl from Topeka, Kan., that didn't have a whole lot of strength. She's used to being a very big fish in a real small pond in Kansas, and she's turned into a pretty big fish in our pond, too.''
