The Atlantic Coast Conference Championship with kick off Wednesday, and the freshmen on the men’s swim team will be headed to the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center in Atlanta in style. Many of the freshmen can be seen with outrageous haircuts ranging from just a circle of hair on top of their head or random strips of hair cut off.
Brandon Kingston, a sophomore on the team, finds the haircuts pretty humorous.
“It’s definitely a tradition that the freshmen get their haircut in a weird way and keep it until we get there on Tuesday, and then they get it all shaved off,” Kingston said. “I’m sure some of them want to get it off as soon as possible.”
The freshmen get their hair cut crazily, but every swimmer on the men’s team shaves their whole body as a ritual before important meets such as the ACC’s in order to increase their speed. Shaving off a swimmer’s hair makes their body smoother, thus creating less drag in the water and quicker laps.
Senior Ben Mechak takes part in this shaving ritual because even a few fractions of a second make a difference in a close race.
“I shave my legs, arms, stomach, chest and back,” Mechak said. “It’s a great feeling when you first dive in the water.”
N.C. State is tied for most ACC Championships titles with 24, and coach Brooks Teal’s goal for the men’s team is to collect another title in the future.
“We’ve got a lot of talented freshmen,” Teal said. “We want to win an ACC championship, but in order to do that, we need to start getting in the top half, then top three, and ultimately win the championship.”
Going into the championship, the Wolfpack men (6-3 overall, 3-3 ACC) are tied for fourth with Clemson (6-3 overall, 2-2 ACC) in the conference. Defending champion Virginia claimed its third consecutive and 13th overall ACC title last year.
The Pack was not satisfied with the way it performed last year after taking ninth place overall. So the team is ready to show the ACC that it is serious in taking the title back to Raleigh this year.
“I look forward for the total team effort to rebound from last year,” Mechak said. “We’re ready to prove to the ACC that we’re a lot better team than we were last year.”
Kingston echoed that comment and agreed that the team this year is a great deal more improved team compared to last year.
“We definitely have a stronger team this year and we have so much potential with all the new freshmen that came in,” Kingston said.
The meet starts on Wednesday with the 200-medley relay and the 800-freestyle relay and will conclude on Saturday, Feb. 26th.
