This is his fourth year as a Camas Papermaker athlete, but it is his first year as a Camas Papermaker.
Kasey Calwell is all-in his senior year, taking in the football games, cheering for the basketball teams, following all the results via Twitter when he cannot attend a contest.
Camas is his school, all the way now.
And he would like nothing more than to win a state championship or two at the state swim meet in February, maybe help bring home a team trophy, too. He would love to return to Camas one day to see the trophy in the display case, to say he was part of that family.
The Papermakers welcomed him when he was a freshman, even when he was not a student of the school. Now that Calwell is a student at Camas, it all means a little bit more to him.
“I feel like I’ve always been a Camas athlete. I guess I actually have been,” Calwell said. “But now it’s kind of like it’s official. It’s my school. Senior year.”
Since he and his family moved to Camas after his eighth-grade year, Calwell has been a student at King’s Way Christian. As soon as he moved to the Northwest, he was one of the top swimmers in his age group for the state of Washington.
For high school sports, though, his private school did not have a team. So he competed with his “home” school — Camas.
For his senior year, he wanted a new experience.
“It’s the first time I’ve been in public school in my entire life,” Calwell said. “Everyone’s been very, very welcoming and embracing, like I’ve been here the whole time.”
One of the biggest factors was to see what daily life was like at a bigger school. At King’s Way, there were 35 students in his whole class. At Camas, that is about the size of a typical classroom.
“I wanted to immerse myself in a bigger culture, get used to college,” Calwell said.
Calwell will be going to a much bigger pool of students next school year. In November, Calwell made his intentions known that he will be attending the University of California Santa Barbara, where he will swim for Gauchos.
Going to Camas for one year will help in his transition to a university with 21,000 students.
While he misses his friends at King’s Way, Calwell said he made the right decision.
“It was a little intimidating at first, but I knew somebody in every single one of my classes,” he said, noting his teammates on the swim team.
Still, he was out of sorts at first, comparing his old school with his new one.
“You go to lunch and you see a thousand people in the lunch room. Where do I sit?”
Making it even more stressful, September was a big recruiting month. He had yet to make his decision. He called the process “a third job.”
There is school, swimming, and recruiting. Taking calls. Answering emails. All this as he dealt with a new school while taking Advanced Placement courses.
He also had recruiting trips to the University of Indiana, the University of Denver, and, of course, Santa Barbara.
“It was absolutely insane,” he said. “Those take you out of school. You start to fall behind a little. I was going crazy.”
Eventually, Calwell, who wants to be a doctor specializing in sports medicine, opted to pursue a major in biology in California.
“In the end, God led me to Santa Barbara,” Calwell said.
While one of the top swimmers in Washington, Calwell would not be considered elite nationally. That’s OK. The UCSB program, he said, specializes in taking good swimmers and making them great.
“They like to find people who aren’t the first picking and build them up,” Calwell said. “They said the best days are ahead of me. That’s what I like to hear.”
In the pool, Calwell hopes his best Washington high school swimming days will be next month. A year ago, he finished second in the 200-yard individual medley and the 100 breaststroke. The goal is to win both events this season. Not just for him, but for his school.
“High school is more emotional than club is. You have more heart behind it,” Calwell said. “You feel you’re not just representing 30 people in your club. In a way, you’re presenting 2,000 kids. You want to leave a legacy.”
Calwell also wants to leave a legacy out of the pool, as well.
In December, Union senior Nolan Henry was named the national male winner for the Wendy’s Heisman Trophy — an honor for athletes who are excellent students and give to their communities. Calwell happened to be a state finalist for the award, as well.
“There is so much need in the world,” he said. “I can’t see problems continuing. I try to change it.”
While at King’s Way, he helped organize a major change with the way the weekly chapel service was conducted. He works sound and lights for the youth group at Grace Foursquare Church in Camas, and he is there to listen to anyone in need.
“It’s a tremendous blessing to see young hearts there getting changed,” Calwell said. “Just to be there for them, to pray with them. It’s cool to find a need and see a change happen.”
A lot has changed in a year for Kasey Calwell, and lot more change is coming soon.
From King’s Way to Camas to Santa Barbara, swimming his way to an education that will last a lifetime.
