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Crandall shatters records

Anna Crandall will swim in NCAA Championship meet in College Station, Texas after setting school records at Pac-10 Championships

Andy Simpson

Issue date: 3/13/09 Section: Forum
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Utah native Anna Crandall began swimming as a way to help her cope with asthma. Crandall parlayed her once a week swimming into a scholarship at OSU and an opportunity to swim in a national championship meet.
Media Credit: Cory Reed
Utah native Anna Crandall began swimming as a way to help her cope with asthma. Crandall parlayed her once a week swimming into a scholarship at OSU and an opportunity to swim in a national championship meet.
With the Oregon State swim team taking eighth place out of nine teams competing at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships, one might expect the team to be less than thrilled with the outcome. But one swimmer exploded off the blocks during the competition and stole the spotlight on the last day of racing.

Anna Crandall, a junior majoring in exercise and sports science, blew away the competition by breaking several personal as well as school records.

Ironically, Crandall started swimming due to a health problem.

"It's really weird how I got into swimming," she said. "I developed asthma and my doctor told me to go swim once a week because the moist air would help. And then I saw the swim team there and I thought, 'Oh, that looks cool, I want to try it.' And my mom was like 'No, it's not your thing. Just let it go.' And so I begged her for like a year. 'Mom, can I please try it?' And then I tried it and I loved it and I just never stopped."

These days, Crandall is breaking records and rubber bands.

"I had a lucky rubber band from one of my friends," Crandall said. "I was told I couldn't take it off from the time I received it so I wore it every day. And it broke one day, so I tied it around the elastic I wore in my hair and I swam with it the entire meet."

Crandall is self-admittedly extremely superstitious, and that didn't change when competing in the Pac-10 Championship.

"I had a certain routine that I went through," Crandall said. "I would get a rubdown from the athletic message therapist and then swim. One day, they were running behind and there were a lot of girls ahead of me in line and I was freaking out. I was thinking 'I should be in the pool now! This is going to mess everything up!' Luckily he moved me up in line and I felt better about competing with my routine back on schedule."
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