Feb. 22, 2012
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Margaret Elizabeth Freeman was one of seven freshmen competing this season for Coach Jeremy Organ’s Vanderbilt swimming team. Freeman is a second-generation Commodore–her father, Lee (’85), and mother, Mary (’87), both are Vanderbilt grads–and the second member of her family to compete in the Southeastern Conference–her brother, Will, swims at Georgia. Freeman sat down with Commodore Nation at the Centennial Sportsplex Pool last month to discuss her game.
On her decision to attend Vanderbilt:
“When I was growing up, I thought about going here. And then as I got older, I thought: `I don’t really want to go there. That’s where my parents went. I want to do my own thing.’ But after I took my visit here, I realized that Vanderbilt was home, and this was where I wanted to go.”
On whether she’s chosen her major concentration:
“Not at all. I think that I want to minor in managerial studies on the corporate strategy track, but as far as my major goes I don’t really know. I’m just taking all kinds of classes. I took a public speaking class. I was really nervous for it, but I took it because I felt that it is a skill I need to have. I ended up really enjoying that.”
On living in the Martha Rivers Ingram Commons:
“It’s all about community. I’m really close with the girls on my hall, and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to get to know them if it weren’t for all the planned activities we had in the beginning.”
On the swim team’s freshman class:
“We’re all really close, which I’m excited about. Elly [Faulkner] and I are actually the only swimmers who room together, and I’ve really enjoyed that. That’s what makes swimming really enjoyable: coming here (to the pool) and seeing all of my friends.”
On her earliest memories of swimming:
“I swam for my neighborhood team in a summer league. The very first summer my parents signed me up, I wouldn’t swim. I didn’t want to lose and I couldn’t win, so I just didn’t swim.
“My brother was the first one to decide to swim year-round. That’s how I got into it, and it just continued. He’s a sophomore at Georgia. We both swim distance free, but that’s kind of his thing, and butterfly’s more of my thing.”
On her practice and pre-race routines:
“I have a new one: at the end of every practice, I blow ring bubbles. Scuba divers do them. You’re upside down, you hold your nose and blow out, and it’s like a giant ring. That’s my new superstition: if you do that at the end of practice, you’ll have a good next practice.
“Pre-race, I always stretch my hamstrings, shake out my arms, then dip my goggles in the water and de-fog them. I just think about how I’ve put all the work in, and this is just a test of that. I don’t get too nervous.”
