By Gail Wood
Her potential was obvious.
Before Hannah Barker swam in her first meet for Timberline High School last year as a freshman, before she even showed up to her first high school practice, she was already fast enough with her club team to qualify for state.
The question that remained to be answered was: Could this young swimmer keep the pedal down? Could she fulfill her potential? Or would she be cocky, over confident and not work hard? The answer came quickly.
“Hannah is a hard worker,” said Marie Ratcliff, Timberline’s swim coach. “She knows if she puts in the work, she’s going to get results.”
With her relentless work ethic – she trains year around and completes two-a-day workouts during the high school season – Barker broke four individual school records and swam in two relays breaking school records last year. That’s six school records. And she qualified for state in four events.
And all when she was a freshman.
“Being in club swimming for 8 ½ years helped,” Barker said. “I knew I had the potential to become a state swimmer, so I wanted to do my best and not to be cocky.”
Barker is anything but cocky. She’s confident and driven.
“My parents and my coaches would know I’m coasting, that I need to go faster,” Barker said. “They would tell me you are not doing your best. That is not what you are capable of. I want to do my best, so I can keep the pedal down and not stop.”
And Barker’s success in the pool hasn’t been a distraction in the classroom. She’s a 4.0 student with her last “B” earned in grade school. Her commitment in the pool has a spillover effect to the classroom.
“Swimming taught me how to create great time management,” Barker said. “I’ve learned how to manage my time.”
And she’s had to. With her busy schedule – three days a week she’s in the pool at 5:30 a.m. swimming with the Evergreen Swim Club for a 90-minute workout – it’s been sink or swim with her school work. There’s little time for goofing around. She’ll maybe watch television two to three hours a week, not a day as some teens do.
“I’m busy, but I’m used to it,” she said.
Barker is fish-like in the pool. No one has swum faster in the 43-plus years of Timberline’s existence. Her school records are in the 200-yard freestyle (1:57.7), 100 freestyle (55.9), 500 freestyle (5:12) and the 100 backstroke (1:02.6). She swam a leg on two record-breaking relays – the 200 freestyle relay (1:46.8) and the 400 freestyle relay (3:56.3) as well.
Three of the four legs on those school-records relay teams return. Joining Barker, there’s Payten Goodwin and Elaine Rocamora. The fourth leg, Rebecca Thomas, has graduated.
Timberline, placing 16th at 4A state last year, is again loaded with talent. Another school-record holder returns for the Blazers to join Barker as well as Marie Dhanens, school record holder in 11-meter diving with a score of 318.85.
Goodwin is inspired by Barker’s work ethic.
“She’s one of our best,” Goodwin said. “I admire her so much. Being so young and having so much success so quickly was amazing. She really embodies what it means to be a swimmer. She’s all hard work, all talent. She’s just really good at what she does.”
Radcliff, in her fourth season as the girls head coach, has a reputation for being a task master, pushing her swimmers to work harder. Yet she’s not all grit and go and leaves room for fun. The team has lots of out-of-the-pool get-togethers such as bowling, laser tag, the RAC obstacle course and eating pizza.
“She reminds us where we are and who we are,” said Goodwin, a team captain. “When she’s pushing us she’ll tell us the season isn’t as long as we think it is. She always tells us we have to push hard.”
However Ratcliff, a 1999 North Thurston High School graduate who swam at state, isn’t just seeing success in the pool. She was also named “Teacher of the Year” in her role as Health and Physical Education teacher at Timberline last year.
“Coach pushes us harder than we think we can go. It all takes hard work. It was so exciting to break the record last year,” said Rocamora of her participation on the record-breaking relay team.
With the get-togethers, Ratcliff has created what she calls a family.
“We are a huge family,” said Ratcliff. “We’re very, very close. It’s crazy how close these girls are.”
Contributing to the family atmosphere is Ratcliff’s dad, Stan Ratcliff, who serves as her assistant coach. John Meyer, a long-time Timberline coach, works with the divers.
“We joke that I have the two old men on the deck and I get paid to yell at them,” Ratcliff said with a smile. “It’s a lot of fun.”
For Ratcliff, who has worked as a juvenile correctional officer before getting into teaching and coaching, it’s all about doing the hard work.
“These girls will tell you I push them. I have huge expectations,” Ratcliff said. “I’m not a real, I guess, touchy, feely, big talker type of coach. Do the work. You’ll see the results. That’s how I roll. They know that.”
Hannah Barker knows, as do her teammates. And with recent results in the pool, it’s obviously a winning formula for the Blazers.
