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August 1, 2008

Flip turn

By TRAVIS METCALF

Boys & Girls Club USA Swimming Tahlequah Stingrays coach Bob Bradshaw saw a swimmer that he knew had more potential than she was showing.

So, to try and motivate her to reach higher than she ever thought she could, as well as other team members, he offered up some incentives.

"I tried to develop some kind of incentive to see if they could move up," Bradshaw said. "And at the time, I had no A swimmers, so I told them I would buy them a $5 gift certificate to any fast food place that they picked if they did an A time. I had one girl with an A time and Kharissa (Taylor) did six, which cost me $30. I didn't expect that."

Bradshaw later said would buy anybody who made Double-A time a full length lined parka, which Taylor also achieved.

"I didn't think I'd have to worry about that either," Bradshaw said. "That's $110. She's done two Double-A times so now I've ordered a long jacket and she's already asked me 'what do we get for Triple-A time?' I'm still working on that one."

USA Swimming categorizes their swimmers by time. The better their time, they reach a certain level which is designed by A level, Double-A level, Triple-A level and Quadruple-A level.

Kharissa has achieved Triple-A time in three different events including the 50-meter backstroke, the 100-meter backstroke and the 50-meter freestyle, one of only two swimmers in the state to reach a Triple-A time. The times qualifies her to swim at the Central Zone meet on the campus of the University of Indiana on Aug. 6-10.

Because she qualified in the three events, she also is qualfied to swim in the one-mile open.

"I love the backstroke," Taylor said. "Coach Bob said that 'if you get an A time, you get a $5 gift certificate and so I was like 'OK, I'm going to get a bunch of $5 gift certificates. Then he said 'if you go to Double-A, you get a parka' and I said 'oh man, I want to get that' so I did my 50-backstroke which is my favorite stroke and I got the parka. Triple-A time was zones and that was my next goal. It took me four tries to get that."

Now that she has reached Triple-A time, her next goal is to reach Quadruple-A. If she reaches that, that would qualify her for junior nationals and maybe tryout for the 2012 Olympics.

"It won't surprise me if she does it," Bradshaw said.

She achieved the Triple-A times in the state championships earlier in the summer, including winning the 50-meter backstroke.

"She's always been an exceptional athlete," Bradshaw said. "She just decided to take swimming seriously."

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