By Charlie Korenchen
UWRF Sports Information

When students, parents and the River Falls community come to watch the UWRF swim team one might see Ty Campbell gliding through the water on his way to winning another race, but there is a lot more to him than that.

Campbell, a senior from Eau Claire, Wis., is one of the top Falcon swimmers. He swims races such as the 100 backstroke and the 200 and 400-yard individual medleys. His strongest event however is the 200 backstroke. He is sixth on the all-time Falcons 200 backstroke list with a time of 2:09.93.

“He leads the Falcons with a quiet intensity in the pool,” said Falcon Coach Bill Henderson. Among his impressive achievements came when he was voted Most Inspirational in 2009.

Campbell has many other interests other than swimming. He is a physics major with a minor in math. When he is not crunching numbers in the physics lab he might be seen watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy or maybe the television show The Fringe. He also enjoys playing any of the Call of Duty games in his free time. When reading for fun instead of just hitting the books he is reading the Drizzt series by R.A. Salvatore. He enjoys just hanging out with the swim team and other friends.

When it comes to hanging out with his teammates outside of the pool he enjoys playing frisbee golf. Frisbee golf, his favorite sport outside of swimming, is something that the swim team likes to do together for team bonding. They will, from time to time, go out to the local frisbee golf course and play a round before taking a dip in a nearby lake. On a typical Friday night many swimmers get together for “Friday Fun Night” in which they play frisbee golf and, depending on the weather in this state, either play board games or softball.

Campbell is very involved in trying to save the swim team from being discontinued next season. This decision is something that the entire team is fighting against. This situation began as a facility issue with the pool on campus falling into disrepair. The solution for this was to rent time at the River Falls High School pool, which costs the school much less than it is to maintain the UWRF pool. The Falcon swim team now has many more members than it has in the past and looks to be a very improved squad. Campbell said he was worried about what will happen to the swim team and what that means for his younger teammates who will hopefully be swimming into next year and beyond.

Campbell has many interesting plans for his future. He plans to attend graduate school and might concentrate his studies in the field of agronomy.

Campbell will leave the Falcons swim team as one of its most inspirational and talented athletes.