For senior Catherine Craig, a two-time All-Patriot League honoree and one of the top breaststrokers in Bucknell history, the sport of swimming has truly been a family affair.
At the high school level, it was quite literally so. Catherine grew up in rural Mansfield, Pennsylvania, about an hour’s drive north of Williamsport in the state’s northern tier, and she attended Notre Dame High School just over the New York border in Elmira. At Notre Dame, Catherine was coached by her father, Francis, and her mentor and training partner was older sister Molly, who went on to become an All-America swimmer at Williams College.
“The swim scene around where I grew up is not very big, so we had to go outside our little bubble to find opportunities,” Catherine says. “So I went to a small private school for seventh through 12th grade and did a lot of training with my sister. She was my main training partner, and then my dad was actually the coach of my high school team. People are always surprised to find out my dad didn’t swim competitively because he was my coach for the majority of my swimming career. He did a lot of research and watched a lot of videos. Looking back on it, growing up in the sport alongside my dad and sister was so rewarding and was an experience that not many people get to have.”
Catherine says she tried soccer as a kid, but it never stuck as a passion. And then one year Molly, two years her elder, signed up for the local swim team and had a great experience. The following summer, Catherine told her parents she wanted to be like her big sister, and she joined the team as well. The rest, as they say, is history.
“I always wanted to do what my sister did because I feel like that’s a younger sibling thing, just wanting to follow in your sister’s footsteps,” says Catherine. “My parents said that I really liked being in the water with all my little eight-and-under friends. So it just kind of stuck. There’s not some grand story as to why I became a swimmer. I just kept doing it because I genuinely liked it, and that’s still true. Even though I’m getting near the end of my career, I still really love swimming just as much as I did when I was six years old.”
Catherine recalls being fairly small for her age, so it wasn’t until she hit her first state cut in ninth grade that she felt like she could really compete with the best swimmers in her area. She went on to have a stellar high school and club career and ended up as a six-time sectional champion and a six-time New York State Federation finalist, finishing as high as fifth in the 100-yard breaststroke in 2018. She broke the Section 4-Class C and IAC records in that event and was a qualifier for USA Swimming Winter Junior Nationals and Futures meets.
“I was always decent, but there are always those superstars in your age group that are like 11 years old and they are out there competing against 18-year-olds. I wouldn’t say I was one of those. It was more low-key when I was younger.”
When it came time to dive into the college recruiting process, Catherine once again took the lead from older sister Molly. Seeing Molly go through the recruiting paces, Catherine immediately knew she wanted to swim in college. The primary criteria were high-quality academics and an opportunity to contribute to the team. In addition to Bucknell, she had interest in Denison, George Washington, Richmond, and Buffalo. She came down to Bucknell for an unofficial visit in the spring of her junior year, opened up communications with coach Dan Schinnerer, and decided that Bucknell checked the most boxes academically, athletically, and socially.
“I was a little nervous because it’s such a big decision and I was a little bit scared to commit,” Catherine admits now. “So it was kind of like a leap of faith, but it ended up working out perfectly and I couldn’t be happier.”
And that’s where the second chapter of Catherine’s family affair begins. Coming from a very small high school program with a roster of fewer than 10 swimmers, she was now about to join a Division I program with around 35 women. Training in and out of the water and life itself was going to be very different, but Catherine says her first-year experience was extremely rewarding.
“Before coming to Bucknell, I had never been on a big team. My high school team was literally like six girls, and two of them were me and my sister. I never had a big warm family swim team, so coming in here, it was so much fun. And I’d never had this many people to train with, so I was honestly living the dream. I loved everything about it. The practices were different, so it was fun to have that change of pace, and I had never lifted before in high school, so that was new and made a huge difference.”
With that smooth transition to college swimming, it didn’t take Catherine long to stand out. By the time February rolled around, she had already posted the fourth-fastest time in school history in the 100 breaststroke, and she earned Second Team All-Patriot League honors after making the finals in the 100 breast (sixth place) and 400 individual medley (seventh).
There were no conference championships during her sophomore year due to COVID-19 restrictions, but she came back last year and earned First Team All-Patriot League and Academic All-Patriot League honors after finishing third in the 400 IM, fourth in the 200 breast and sixth in the 100 breast.
On the list of Bucknell’s all-time performers, Catherine is now up to second in the 200 breast, trailing only teammate Abby Doss by about a half-second. She is also fourth in both the 100 breast and 400 IM, and during her freshman season she swam the breaststroke leg on the second-fastest 400 medley relay in school history.
Individual accolades are nice, but Catherine is quick to credit her teammates for pushing her hard in training, and she is especially proud of the team’s 27-4 dual-meet record and two runner-up finishes at the Patriot League Championships during her Bucknell career to date.
“After my sister graduated, I really didn’t have anyone to train with on my high school team. So coming to Bucknell and having so many training buddies, especially in the IM and breaststroke where we have so much depth, it’s been really great. We have so many fast girls, which I love because you’re not always racing the same person every day.”
The Bison are in the midst of another strong season, with a 5-2 dual record and a first-place finish at the Bucknell Invitational. A Senior Day dual with Lehigh is up next, and then Catherine’s final Patriot League Championship meet will be contested in her home pool at Kinney Natatorium on Feb. 15-18.
With her senior swimming season and graduation around the corner, Catherine knows she will depart having made the most of her Bucknell experience. And it’s been about so much more than swimming. During her time at Bucknell, Catherine has taken part in the Bucknell Mentorship Program, Bucknell Athletics Leadership Institute, and Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, and she also served as a New Student Orientation Assistant.
Since last May, Catherine has worked as a nurses’ assistant at Evangelical Community Hospital here in Lewisburg, where she interacts closely with patients, answering call bells, taking vitals and blood glucose levels, and doing anything else that the nurses need. She even joined an economics professor and two other students in a research project on the effects of COVID-19 on the nursing workforce, and how the pandemic affected work-life balance across genders and in the rural healthcare system in general.
“We looked at a lot of the realities of rural healthcare and how the shortages in healthcare professionals due to COVID-19 are magnified in rural areas. Nurses, in particular, are extremely overworked, and especially with COVID, many of them felt unsupported by management.”
Working at the hospital has allowed Catherine to shadow doctors and nurses and make connections for the future as she contemplates going to PA school after graduation.
Like all college athletes who competed through the pandemic, Catherine will have a fifth year of eligibility to use in graduate school, if she chooses. While that possibility is not completely off the table, Catherine admits that it feels right to end her competitive swimming career alongside her closest friends – her Bucknell Family.
“Having the fifth year is a great option, especially if you are looking to get scholarships for grad school, but I guess right now I’m just really looking forward to wrapping up my career with my Bucknell family. I’m really loving and cherishing these last moments with this team, because it’s been so meaningful for me the past four years.”
Catherine and the Bison host Lehigh on Saturday at noon at Kinney Natatorium.
