Inside the Locker Room Marika Ross comes up for air to shoot the breeze with Brooke

Author: Brooke Farquhar

Marika Ross '08 is proving that the Great Lakes generate great swimmers. The junior from Shorewood, Wis. has so many honors that they could fill up this feature, if not the entire edition of this newspaper.

While her list of accomplishments is not short, Ross's favorite memory from team trips to Florida is when Robbie Burton '08 donned what she describes as, "the shortest shorts known to man" as part of their first-years skit.

Ross continues to make "freshmen" memories with first-year teammate Katie Remington '10, and in her position as a JC in Battell with Scotty Leighton '08.5. While most of us cannot imagine ever using the word "favorite" to describe anything related to Battell, Ross's favorite part of living there is that the vending machine is right down the hall.

Ross recently earned all-NESCAC honors in the 50-yard butterfly, 100-yard butterfly, 200-yard butterfly, 200-yard freestyle relay, 400-yard freestyle relay, 800-yard freestyle relay and 400-yard medley relay. While they certainly could not name all of Ross's achievements as a swimmer, how well can teammate Katie Remington '10 and fellow JC Scotty Leighton '08.5 match her responses in this edition of Inside the Locker Room?

Swimmer and Wisconsin native Marika Ross '08 loves her dairy. Her preference of Wisconsin cheddar cheese, her obsession with butter and her favorite stroke of the butterfly reveals there is no mistaking that this girl is from America's Dairyland.

There's also no mistaking that her teammate knows her better. In a landslide 4-1 victory, Remington, also a Wisconsin native, lay out Leighton. It may be the home-state connection that landed Remington the win or it might be the fact that when talking about Ross, Remington openly admits, "I guess she's just pretty much my idol." Indeed, Remington's knowledge of Ross as a teammate, Wisconsiner(ite?), and idol eliminated the competition.

They say love conquers all, and if you don't believe it, look at Ross's performance at the NESCAC competition. At Williams on February 18th, Ross swam her favorite stroke in the 50 fly and conquered the old school and pool record with a time of 25.85.

She didn't stop there, as she also put up a new school, pool and NESCAC record in the 200 fly event with a time of 2:01.25. Ross is literally flying over established NESCAC records.