{"id":130730,"date":"2020-02-07T11:06:05","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T16:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=130730"},"modified":"2023-01-24T13:45:46","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T18:45:46","slug":"video-lewistons-matt-charest-is-a-bobcat-for-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2020\/02\/07\/video-lewistons-matt-charest-is-a-bobcat-for-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Video: Lewiston&#8217;s Matt Charest is a Bobcat for life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Peter Casares has been the head coach of the Bates swimming and diving program for 13 years.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the first things he did after his hiring was offer lessons for schoolchildren in the community. One of his first pupils was 9-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gobatesbobcats.com\/sports\/swimdive\/2019-20\/bios\/charest_matthew_cnn6?view=bio\">Matt Charest \u201920<\/a> of Lewiston.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;Matt would come in on Sundays two or three times a month to work with me one-on-one,&#8221; Casares said. &#8220;And when we decided to run a swim camp, I mentioned to him, as a 9-year old, \u2018You know, you\u2019re a good swimmer, you learn really well, I can tell this matters to you. So maybe you should look into this swim camp we have.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #009779;\"><em>Video by Aaron Morse.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lewiston&#039;s Matt Charest: A Bates Bobcat for life\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S0bW3v6GV2A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Charest attended that swim camp and immediately fell in love with it.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;Getting to stay overnight really got me interested in Bates,&#8221; Charest said. &#8220;Getting to have food at the dining halls was amazing for me as a kid, getting ice cream all the time.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The now-senior captain of the Bates men&#8217;s swimming and diving team returned every summer, first as a camper and then as a counselor, becoming a Bobcat for life.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_130777\" style=\"width: 680px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/Charest-Pool004-toned.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-130777\" class=\"size-large wp-image-130777\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/Charest-Pool004-toned-670x900.jpg\" alt=\"Matt Charest as a young boy at the Bates swim camp. (Photograph courtesy the Charest family)\" width=\"670\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/Charest-Pool004-toned-670x900.jpg 670w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/Charest-Pool004-toned-223x300.jpg 223w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/Charest-Pool004-toned-1143x1536.jpg 1143w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/Charest-Pool004-toned-149x200.jpg 149w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/Charest-Pool004-toned.jpg 1428w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 670px) 100vw, 670px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-130777\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Matt Charest as a young boy at the Bates swim camp. (Photograph courtesy the Charest family)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;The thing about Matt is that he is an extraordinary leader by example,&#8221; said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gobatesbobcats.com\/sports\/swimdive\/2019-20\/bios\/berry_nathan_egsi?view=bio\">Nathan Berry &#8217;23<\/a> of Augusta, Maine. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;All the way up from being swim campers together and doing morning practices when we were counselors together. And now, seeing him in practice every day, I look over and he\u2019s kicking really hard, and he\u2019s moving, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Man, I can\u2019t lose to Charest!\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Next up for Charest and his team are the NESCAC Championships, Feb. 20\u201323 in Williamstown, Mass., where his goal is to qualify for NCAAs in March, in a relay event.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_130768\" style=\"width: 850px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/2019-11-09_Bates_Sportriats_Burns-563.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-130768\" class=\"wp-image-130768 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/2019-11-09_Bates_Sportriats_Burns-563-e1581096665755-840x900.jpg\" alt=\"Men's Swimming\" width=\"840\" height=\"900\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/2019-11-09_Bates_Sportriats_Burns-563-e1581096665755-840x900.jpg 840w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/2019-11-09_Bates_Sportriats_Burns-563-e1581096665755-280x300.jpg 280w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/2019-11-09_Bates_Sportriats_Burns-563-e1581096665755-187x200.jpg 187w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/02\/2019-11-09_Bates_Sportriats_Burns-563-e1581096665755.jpg 1194w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 840px) 100vw, 840px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-130768\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Matt Charest &#8217;20 is an &#8220;extraordinary leader by example,&#8221; says teammate Nathan Berry &#8217;23 of Augusta, Maine. (Brewster Burns for Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Graduation is just a few months away, but the past 13 years have given Charest, who hopes to coach his own swim team one day, a proud connection to Bates that few others can claim.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;It will always be a part of me,&#8221; Charest said. &#8220;And I can\u2019t thank this pool enough and everybody that\u2019s supported me enough. So, it\u2019s bittersweet, but I\u2019m excited for the future.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> From swim camp to Lewiston High School to Bates, senior swim captain Matt Charest&#8217;s connections to the community run deep. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":758,"featured_media":130774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"Lewiston native and Bates men's swimming senior captain Matt Charest basically grew up in Tarbell Pool. From swim camp to Lewiston High School to Bates College, Charest's connections to the community run deep. And he is a Bobcat for life.","_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":""},"categories":[24,31,11012,11009],"tags":[5263,10830,12109,11314,8348],"class_list":["post-130730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-lewiston-auburn","category-student-life","category-the-college","tag-lewiston-high-school","tag-lewiston-auburn","tag-matt-charest","tag-peter-casares","tag-swimming-and-diving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130730"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130779,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130730\/revisions\/130779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}