Greenfield standout battled way to state
Emilio Perez may not be fully recovered, but he is completely re-energized.
That is the word from Dale Schank, the boys swim coach for Greenfield Coop and a major believer in the talented sophomore who will make his state meet debut Saturday at the Division 1 competition at UW-Natatorium in Madison. Perez is the top seed in the 50-yard freestyle and among the top contenders in the 100 free.
This Hawk is a unique bird. “I’ve been coaching club teams for 40 years. We’ve had all kinds of junior national, Olympic-trial cut swimmers, state-record holders,” Schrank said. ”I have never seen anyone do this well on such a small amount of training.”
Perez’s path to the state meet is one less traveled.
He competed for just a couple of weeks last season before giving up the sport to play basketball. In the fall, he lined up for Greenfield’s football team. Both seasons ended with injuries. He suffered an ankle injury in basketball that required surgery. He also needed surgery after the premature end to his football season to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus in his right knee.
The last surgery was in September. He still isn't 100 percent. As a result, he has needed to get by with a much greater reliance on his upper body. He also brought a different mindset to the pool.
“When I did get injured, those things didn’t bring me down,” Perez said. “It was more of a positive thing for me because it gave me a new way to think about things.
“So now coming back into swim, I know that not everything is going to be all sunshine and rainbows. There are going to be those bad times and in those times you’re going to have to look at it different way, so those injuries made me want to work harder.”
Perez is no stranger to the pool. Though he barely swam last season, he has been involved with the sport for more than a decade. His older siblings — Esmeralda, 23, Lisa, 22 and Rick, 21 — all swam for Greenfield.
One of the keys to this season has been redefining his stroke to account for his knee injury. There are just certain motions and strokes he still isn’t allowed to do because of it.
“I had to find a new way to race,” he said. “I remember sitting down with my dad and watching videos and (figure out) what would irritate my knee and what wouldn’t.”
The results show they struck gold. He won four events at the Woodland Conference meet Feb. 2, setting new league and pool records in the process. In his individual races, it wasn’t even close. His time of 20.81 in the 50 was .85 seconds better than the mark his brother, Rick, set in 2015. Perez’s 100 free time of 46.55 beat the 2018 mark set by Greenfield’s Ben Davis by 1.43 seconds.
At the sectional last week, Perez beat his previous season-best in the 50, going 20.79 to further the school and pool record he’d established the previous week.
That race will be his best opportunity for a state title Saturday, though in order to win it he’ll have to beat a number of experienced swimmers that include four-time state qualifier James Kostrzewa of Franklin and Waukesha South/Catholic Memorial junior Jacob Carlson, who owns the No. 2 time in the state this season (20.89).
“I still have to go to state and prove to myself that I am what those times say I am,’ said Perez, who also credited Mark Schrank, a coach with Southwest Aquatic team, for helping with his stroke. “A lot of those teams we haven’t raced yet and a lot of teams, when we did race them, I wasn’t cleared to swim. Those times don’t really matter.”