Callum MacKintosh collected his share of medals — including a state championship — during his four years swimming for Hockinson High School.
But his real legacy goes deeper. It is found not in the fast times he swam. Instead, it’s in these numbers: Hockinson sent six boys to the state swimming championships last month, and placed fourth among the 25 schools that were represented at the Class 2A state meet. The Hawks had 15 boys swimming this season, 10 more than were on the team two seasons ago.
“I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I was super-happy with our overall performance,” MacKintosh said.
On an individual level, there was some disappointment at the state meet. MacKintosh, a senior, placed a close second to Archbishop Murphy sophomore Alec Barnard in both the 200-yard freestyle and in the 100-yard butterfly.
Still, he recorded personal records in both races, and was the highest placing swimmer from Clark County at a state meet this winter. Those results earned MacKintosh The Columbian’s All-Region Swimmer of the Year honor for a second time in three years. He also was the newspaper’s choice in 2009 after winning the 200 individual medley title at the first 2A state meet, and also placing third in the 100 fly.
MacKintosh admits he was initially disappointed to come up short of gold medals at his final high school meet. But once he realized his times were both personal-bests — and that his time in the 200 free beat the previous 2A state-meet record — MacKintosh said he was proud of the result.
“That last 25 (yards) is where Alec (Barnard) caught me. He just had some reserve energy from somewhere,” MacKintosh said. “I was really happy with the times, though.”
In the 200 free, MacKintosh’s time of 1 minute, 44.7 seconds was almost three seconds faster than his best time prior to the state meet. It was also better than the previous 2A state-meet record in that event.
In the 100 fly, MacKintosh was clocked in 52.14 seconds.
There were also medals in both freestyle relays.
Hockinson finished a close second in the 200-yard free relay. Teaming with juniors Alyosha Weyman, Nick Carssow and Cooper Budden, MacKintosh anchored the Hawks to a time of 1:30.81, a half-second behind Pullman and quicker than the previous state-meet record.
The Hawks placed third in the 400 free relay with a time of 3:24.19, with MacKintosh leading off followed by sophomore Dylan Butler, Weyman and Budden.
All of those swims almost didn’t happen. With college swimming opportunities ahead, MacKintosh said there were family discussions about whether he should drop high school swimming to concentrate only on training with his Gresham-based club team.
“Trying to do high school and club, there’s so much stress,” MacKintosh said.
It meant fitting high school practices into a schedule that includes daily doubles in Gresham three days a week, which requires waking at 4:30 a.m.
But MacKintosh could not pass on his last chance to swim with high school friends, many of whom he encouraged to try high school swimming in the first place.
“I was thinking, ‘I’ve recruited all these guys, I can’t just leave them,’ ” he said. “Plus, I love high school swimming. It’s so much fun. The atmosphere of it. Everyone’s cheering, everyone’s saying good job. You have your closest friends from school right there.”
And with MacKintosh’s presence as a foundation, it seems Hockinson boys swimming has arrived.
