Pendleton High senior Brooke Collins already has three school records and will be looking for an elusive state title this season.<br><I>Staff photo by E.J. Harris

Her entire high school swimming career, Pendleton senior Brooke Collins has set herself apart from her female teammates.

In practice she swims with the boys on the team, not because she has anything against swimming with her female teammates but because she’s so much faster in the pool than they are.

“I?swim with the boys every day. They try to push me and I?feel like I?push them too because they don’t want to get beat by a girl,”?she said. “As far as high school season I’ve always been in the boys’ lane with the boys that go to state.”

Collins has secured her legacy in Buckaroo history by swimming to a school record in each of the last three seasons. She owns the Pendleton records in the 500- and 200-yard freestyle and the 200 individual medley but is still looking for her first state title after three close finishes.

Although Collins, 17, is poised to enter the state meet as a favorite in the 100 and 200 freestyle, the thing she looks forward to the most this season is taking some teammates with her.

As part of the girls’ 200- and 400-yard freestyle relay teams, she may get that opportunity should the teams either win their district meet this weekend in Bend or swim fast enough to earn an at-large bid to the state meet Feb. 19 at Mount Hood Community College.

The 200 team also consists of Justine Cooley, Camille Devine and Jonicka Sperl while Shelby O’Malley substitutes for Devine in the 400. The two teams have won several meets this season already, so their chances and spirits are high headed into the district meet.

“It’s been exciting because every year I’ve been the only girl at state and knowing that I?could have three other girls there with me is really cool,” Collins said. “And they’ve all been working really hard. You can tell they want it just as bad as any of us do.”

Collins is a good example of how enough want can drive an athlete to reach greater heights.

As her mother and high school coach Donna Collins explained, swimming wasn’t something that came naturally to her daughter.

“To be quite honest swimming wasn’t real easy for Brooke,” said Donna, who grew up swimming for area teams, including the Pendleton Seahorses in the early days of organized youth swimming in Pendleton.

“She’s always been really tall, grew real quickly and not real coordinated as a little tiny kid. So she’s had to really work at this to make it where she is right now.”

Brooke played soccer, volleyball, track and basketball as a young girl, but it is her time spent as a member of the Junior Jam dance team that Donna credits with brining her coordination along the quickest.

Her years dancing under the tutelage of Debbie Kishpaugh, coupled with years of hard work put in as a member of the Bend Swim Club under head coach Mark Bernett, have brought Brooke far enough to make swimming in college a real possibility.

It’s her work in the classroom that will make it a reality, though.

Brooke does not work a job like many of her classmates because between morning practices at the Blue Mountain Community College pool before school starts, practice after school and her college prep class load that includes courses like advanced placement english, honors biology and pre-calculus/trigonometry, she simply has no time.

“Swimming is my job – pool, school and sleep,” Brooke said.

Brooke has been a standout in the classroom as well and it’s a good thing because the colleges she is looking at most seriously are both Division III, which offers no athletic scholarships.

University of California Santa Cruz is her first option with her father’s alma mater, Central College in Kentucky, another top option.

Collins also is looking at Boise State, Colorado State and Fresno State but isn’t sure she wants to swim at Division I because it would dominate her life for the next four years.

For a girl that switches events nearly every meet during the school season, variety is key to maintaining a healthy attitude, and she feels the programs at both UC?Santa Cruz and Central are strong enough to challenge her in the pool as well.

“I know I?get really bored with swimming the same thing week after week. Especially because a lot of the races are so different and if you’re racing the same one every week it gets kind of tiring,”?Brooke said of her restlessness.

“She wants to be able to get out of school and still love swimming,” Donna said.