![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/Images\/Bates_Magazine\/spring05\/sportsnotes1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Girl grows up in Auburn, Maine. She leaves home and drives 6.92 miles \u2014 wow, across the Androscoggin River \u2014 to spend four years at Bates. Her swim teammates, coming to Lewiston from as far away as Utah, Washington, even the Czech Republic, declared the obvious: Townie!<\/em><\/p>\n Vanessa Williamson \u201905, the local All-American not listed on the Denny\u2019s breakfast menu, hated the nickname, even though in some ways she is the ultimate townie at Bates. She\u2019s a native Mainer, her father is Charles A. Dana Professor of French Dick Williamson, and she blossomed as a swimmer and student at Edward Little, the public high school in Auburn.<\/p>\n She hated the name because it stinks of stereotype. True, Bates is in a town in a state where teen-age aspirations too often end with high school, but even so, it rankled Vanessa that her fellow Bates students view local kids \u201cas either rednecks or druggies \u2014 they don\u2019t see the nice sides of Lewiston-Auburn.\u201d<\/p>\n Or the good people, for that matter. \u201cVanessa has shown what a local student-athlete can do at an institution like Bates,\u201d says her father. Half of all Maine residents leave the state to go to college (compared to 19 percent nationally) so Vanessa\u2019s decision to study in Maine is a point of pride. \u201cShe dispels the notion that you have to go away for a good college experience,\u201d says Dick.<\/p>\n Out of the pool, Vanessa, a psychology major, works at Temple Shalom nursery school, assisting the same teachers she had when she wore water wings, and at East Auburn Elementary. She also helps coach the swim teams at Hebron Academy and St. Dominic High School, the Catholic high school in Auburn. Then there are Bates classes, pre-Leno bedtimes, off-season triple sessions, raisin diets, in-season lifting with WWF legend Tony Atlas (the man who pinned Hulk Hogan), an in-season alcohol ban (selfimposed), friends but still no such thing as Friday nights and, of course, practice.<\/p>\n Over at Tarbell, in the see-ment pond, Vanessa swims her laps, roiling the pool like a watermill. Her accomplishments go on and on, too: She\u2019s won a combined eight All-America awards in the 100- and 200-yard butterflies and the 200 individual medley. She holds four individual Bates records (50, 100 and 200 flies and the 200 IM) and has been a part of four record-setting relay teams. She set the NESCAC record in the 200 fly, winning in 2003.<\/p>\n Growing up, Williamson lived overseas three times when her father taught abroad, so it\u2019s not as if she\u2019s never left Lewiston-Auburn. Bates is just where she wanted to be. \u201cMy first couple years I wondered if it would be different if I went to school far away, but I don\u2019t have any regrets,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Long before Vanessa brought Bates teammates and other friends home for spaghetti suppers and sleepovers, the North Auburn home of Dick and Debbie Williamson was a popular Commons alternative for Batesies. Dick, a Yalie who played varsity hockey with John Kerry, coached the Bates club hockey team into the 1980s, and his players still recall gathering in the Williamsons\u2019 kitchen, warmed by wood stove, hospitality, and \u201cCCC\u201d \u2014 chocolate, coffee, and cordials.<\/p>\n \u201cMy friends are always ranting and raving, \u2018Your dad is the best teacher, he has so much energy,\u2019\u201d says Vanessa. \u201cI\u2019m like, I know! He has a lot of energy at home, too.\u201d<\/p>\n This spring, Vanessa and her father both take big next steps. Dick retires after 29 years at Bates, and Vanessa graduates and will move to California to swim with the Nova Aquatics club team in Irvine. Vanessa will be a continent away from her parents who, for the first time, won\u2019t have a child in college or living at home (Vanessa has a sister Melissa, 39, and two brothers, Chris, 37, and Dustin, 25).<\/p>\n Her goal? \u201cJust making it,\u201d she says. \u201cIf there\u2019s room for improvement, then I\u2019ll keep trying. I think of it as an adventure.\u201d She\u2019s used to forging ahead in a sport that in Maine, at least, is \u201cby no means sexy,\u201d says her father. \u201cSwimming gets little publicity. But you go out and try the best you can \u2014 see what your limits are.\u201d<\/p>\n Williamson won\u2019t be in completely unfamiliar waters as she chases her Olympic dream. In high school she swam in meets with Ian Crocker of Portland, who won an Olympic gold last summer, and she met Michael Phelps at last year\u2019s Olympic pretrials. She once swam in the lane next to her hero, Jenny Thompson, who is from New Hampshire, another state not known for producing swimmers.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore the blocks I was just having fun, jumping around, clapping, thinking I was making her nervous,\u201d Williamson laughs. Truth is, Williamson\u2019s own competitive style is to block out the competition. In the pool, \u201cI close my eyes when I breathe so I don\u2019t see anyone else. I swim my own race and just keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Girl grows up in Auburn, Maine. She leaves home and drives 6.92…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":1743,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-1759","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10816,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1759\/revisions\/10816"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}