It had become an all too familiar scene: the tired varsity swimmer would make their way from their car half asleep while clumsily maneuvering their way to the pool deck. On their way they would think of the multitude of challenging sets that awaited them while ignoring cramping limbs.

As they were beginning to embrace the strenuous afternoon they had ahead of them they were bombarded with their coach standing over the pool, which contained submerged garbage cans that once had been full of milk cartons, food wrappers, and forgotten homework.  Instead of the warming up or receiving a much needed pep talk from Coach Macko the athletes were now faced with the task of fishing out garbage from the bottom of the pool only to swim in the contaminated water afterwards.

For the last couple of years Lincoln High school’s pool, located behind the girl’s locker room, has been plagued with pranks such as large amounts of sand being tossed into the water, large metal poles carrying heavy pool covers being pushed into the diving well and most recently trash cans being launched into the lanes.

The first few times the incident occurred it was annoying but nothing more serious than an annoyance. Now however,  swimmers are starting to get angry, “It’s pretty ridiculous that it’s happened so many times, it just makes the water so dirty and uninviting to our guests” says senior Hannah Berenjfoorosh.

Many athletes are beginning to wonder why the culprit has yet to be caught when there are multiple cameras surrounding the perimeter of the school. When asked why the cameras hadn’t yet been checked multiple sources have claimed that the crimes weren’t more than nuisance and therefore weren’t worth taking the time to check out.

Although there hasn’t been any evidence, many athletes have their suspicions: “I think its the football team, last year they stole our tent without asking so whats stopping them from throwing our already worn out equipment” said sophomore swimmer Asya Cardenas.

In fact the swim team faces issues steaming from under funding every single day. “Our pool is almost too small for swim regulation, the sand thats been thrown in has created problems for our filters, we don’t have enough money for busses to every meet, the heater is consistently broken to the point where there are health concerns. Its ridiculous how little money goes to funding a sport that does so well” vented the captain of the boys swim team, Nolan Feron. While Nolan himself is projected to qualify for CCS this year, Lincoln sent junior Juan Varella went to CCS qualifiers last year for his five hundred yard freestyle.

The crimes haven’t stopped at foreign objects in our pool however. Yesterday, Wednesday March 22nd, two members of the women’s varsity swim team were robbed or violated. Senior’s Tori Rystrom and Ronnie Rodriguez had both left their bags in the womens locker room before attending the hour and forty minute swim practice; upon return Tori realized that her boyfriends birthday present of various snacks as well as the entirety of her makeup bag had been stolen. While Ronnie had not noticed anything missing the culprit had made it very clear that her bag was searched by leaving pockets open and moving various books around. “It’s so violating and terrible to know that someones been through your stuff, it just sucks” Tori said through tears.

Though the varsity swim is  facing startling adversity they will persevere for their meet today against Yerba Buena hosted by Lincoln. We will be keeping a close eye on this series of crime and keep you updated Lions!