Jimmy Lafakis/MDN A diving board overlooking an empty pool at Roosevelt Park in Minot.

Anna Rae Clark is the head coach of the Minot Swim Club. She began teaching swim lessons and was hired as head coach for the competitive club in the summer of 2018. Originally from Alabama, Clark moved to Minot from Texas in the summer of 2017.

The Minot Daily News spoke with Clark about her coaching duties, her journalism background and more. Some responses are edited for brevity and clarity.

MDN: Why is the Minot Swim Club special to you?

ARC: Swimming is a very special sport. It’s an individual sport, but it’s completely made possible by the team. I have a lot of good memories of swimming. It’s a great way to meet people, it’s a great life skill and I’m really passionate about helping these kids. Hopefully, they will have the same good memories with it that I did.

MDN: With the pandemic going on, how are you dealing with everything?

ARC: I’ve been posting online workouts for the kids. We’ve done a fun ‘get to know your coaches’ series on Instagram. Overall, I think we’ve handled it as best we could. We’re pretty anxious to get back into the pool. It’s hard to keep swimmers out of the water.

It’s not so much the racing that’s important, but it’s the camaraderie. Swimming is fun. I think the kids miss each other. They miss the water.

Right now, we’re on hold. We’ve been working closely with the Roosevelt Park pool and the high school and college pools. Fingers crossed, we’ll be able to start practices again in June. It’s the waiting game right now.

MDN: You moved here from the South just a few years ago. What does the Minot community mean to you?

ARC: They have welcomed me with totally open arms. I did not grow up here, but I know that the swim teams have been a part of the community for a really long time. I wasn’t sure how they would adjust to having an outsider come in and coach.

I cannot say enough good things about this community. They have been so welcoming. The first winter we moved up here (because) my husband deployed, I had people offering to come shovel my driveway for me because I had never shoveled snow before. I had people checking on me to make sure my heater was working. It’s such a great community up here.

You hear so much about Southern hospitality, but I have never experienced anything like the genuine kindness that people seem to have up here.

MDN: What lessons did you learn from your collegiate swimming career at the University of Alabama?

ARC: The biggest things that swimming taught me were discipline and hard work. It also taught me to lean on other people. I dealt with a lot of injuries in my swimming career. There were a lot of days where I probably would have quit, had it just been me.

The way other people can encourage you completely beats the way you can encourage yourself. If you learn to lean on other people, you can go so much further than trying to do it by yourself. That’s probably the biggest lesson I learned.

MDN: What’s your personal favorite swimming event or stroke?

ARC: I love the butterfly. I think I like it more because a lot of people hate it. My best event going into college was the 200-meter butterfly.

A lot of people say that it’s a really tough event. It felt like an honor to me because I liked that one.

MDN: Are there any swimmers you tried to emulate?

ARC: My favorite swimmer is Jason Lezak. He’s an Olympian. He’s an elite swimmer, but he’s not as famous as the Michael Phelps of swimming. I really like him. From everything I’ve heard, he’s a genuinely good guy.

MDN: What memories do you have from getting your master’s degree in journalism?

ARC: I love to read. I love to write. I was pre-med during my freshman year, but it turned out that I was terrible at science. I don’t know why I chose pre-med.

After deciding that it wasn’t for me, I studied things that I liked. I picked journalism because I really loved writing and I loved reading. Probably the best thing that journalism gave me was finding out that I loved getting to know people. I love getting to know what makes people tick. I really liked the human interest stories, the people stories and just talking to people.

Learning to listen to where people are coming from is what I love about journalism.

MDN: What are some of your hobbies outside of swimming?

ARC: I actually played rugby before I moved up here. I picked up rugby in grad school after I finished swimming. I love team sports, and I was looking for another sport.

I was like, ‘You know, I’ve never heard of this. Let’s give it a shot.’ I just completely fell in love with the sport. I played rugby for a couple of years in Alabama and then in Texas on a women’s team afterwards. That’s my biggest passion besides swimming.

I’ve always really liked challenges.

Jimmy Lafakis covers Minot High School sports and Class B high school sports. Follow him on Twitter @JJLII30.