Sailors' Ben Rini pulls off rare swimming-basketball winter sports double

VERMILION — It's fairly common to see soccer players kicking for the football team. Golfers have made an impact on the gridiron and sometimes soccer players run cross country. In the spring, baseball and softball players have been known to compete in track & field. Playing multiple sports in the winter is far more unusual because of the time and energy required to compete in basketball, wrestling and swimming. But Ben Rini is making it work. "I've been doing both for my entire life," said the Vermilion junior, a starter for the Sailors in basketball and a district qualifier in the pool. "Swimming runs heavily on my mom's side of the family and basketball runs heavily on my dad's side. I've been doing both for as long as I can remember so I just stuck with it. "Thankfully, our school has a two-sport policy and I'm able to play and do both." Rini has been doing it for three seasons now and even had basketball teammates Uriah Rhoades and Gus Matheson join him on the swim team last winter. Both seniors decided to stick to basketball this winter. "Swimming is definitely a very tough sport," Rini said. "I think sometimes it goes unrecognized, but my teammates and coaches realize how tough the practices are. We swim thousands of yards in practice each day. On average, it's anywhere from 2,800 to 3,800, but then as coach is drilling us and getting us into shape, we get up into the 4,000s. "I try to never pull out of swimming workouts or decrease my yardage just because I play basketball. I try to take the approach that I've got to give it my all and do everything because when I'm trying to get over that hump from district to state, I want to know I did everything I could." Rini did make it to the Division II district swim meet the last two years in his individual events — the 200 freestyle and the 100 breaststroke — and as part of Vermilion's 200 medley and 200 free relay teams. Rini's older brother Jack, a 2020 Vermilion graduate, also reached the district meet last year after making it to the Division II state level the year before in the sprint events. "It takes a very special kind of individual to be able to give the amount of time and effort Ben gives at basketball practice, and then turn around give the same effort and commitment in swim practice," said Brett Dawson, the Vermilion swim coach. "Ben is about as athletic as they come. He's a machine, he's a hard worker. He puts his nose to the grindstone and he knows how to be committed and get the best out of himself. "From a swimming perspective, he doesn't accept anything but the best from himself, even if it pushes his body to the brink." Rini's day is very busy. He goes to school online and to basketball practice at 3:30 p.m. He gets home from that practice around 5:30, just in time to have dinner, do a little homework and then head over to the Norwalk Rec Center for the 6:30 start to swim practice. "I personally have not run into a situation like this," said Kurt Habermehl, who has served as the Vermilion varsity basketball coach for 22 years. "I think your initial reaction is, 'How will this affect both sports' practice times?' Once you realize he's able to do both and it doesn't affect either one, you're OK with it. You should never be upset about a kid wanting to do a lot of activities." Rini has been competing in both sports for so long, all the practice times and laps that he swims just comes naturally. "There was a time last year where we had a swim meet at Oberlin College and I drove straight to Perkins for a basketball game," he said. "I push myself throughout the week and my coaches push me, so when that time comes where I have to do both, I'm ready for it. As odd as it sounds, I feel like this is regular for me to put this much on my body." "I know he gets pretty tired and worn out, but he handles it pretty well," Habermehl said. "You would never really know watching him because he's in such great shape. You'll never hear Ben complain about it, you'll never hear him say he's tired or anything like that, because he's thankful he gets to do two different sports and does a good job adjusting to it." Rini, a three-year letterwinner in football, was competing in basketball and swimming before Vermilion had a varsity swim program. He swam for the Vermilion YMCA team while playing basketball for the Sailors at the junior high level. The high school added swimming as a club sport his freshman year, which turned into a varsity sport last year. "Swimming is a very different sport than everything else," Dawson said. "The endurance is hard to come by and it's very quick to be lost. Am I happy to have the right kids come out? Absolutely, and Ben is one of those right kids." While Rini's basketball buddies didn't return to the swim team this winter, his little sister Meagan, a freshman, is also competing on the swim and basketball teams at Vermilion. Ben, the leading rebounder in the SBC Lake Division with nearly nine boards per game, is also thinking about adding track to his résumé this spring. "My mom always tells people that swimming gets you into great shape, and it does," he said. "When I get out on the basketball court I know that when the fourth quarter comes, I'm going to be ready and probably be in the best shape on the floor. "I know that if I'm guarding a guy and it's the end of the game and we're both out of breath, I know I've done all this extra training and I have extra miles left in the tank." ----- Lindsley McCune played basketball and was a one-girl swim team at Margaretta CASTALIA — Competing in both basketball and swimming is rare, but not unheard of. Junior Ben Rini has been doing it the last three years at Vermilion, while 1994 Margaretta graduate Andrea Lindsley McCune did it all four years of her high school career. "That just proves how hard it is, because doing both means he has to do all his work after school and still get his school work in, but I guarantee you he's in great shape," she said. McCune was a swim team of one and was coached by her father, Kevin. The only meets she competed in were the Sandusky Bay Conference championships, sectional and districts, and just missed making the Division I state girls championships as a senior. Out of the pool, she was part of the Margaretta girls basketball team that advanced to the state semifinals two consecutive years. "I did it because I grew up swimming," McCune said. "I swam for the Vacationland Swim Club growing up, but Margaretta didn't have a team at that time, but I asked about getting certified through the Ohio High School Athletic Association so I could compete in swimming. "Basically, I practiced on my own. I had an eighth-period study hall so my dad would come over and I would practice in the pool. Some days I went to the (Sandusky) YMCA so I would never miss basketball practice. "I only ever missed one game of basketball, a nonconference game against Buckeye Central."