By Seth Schwartz
Staff Writer

One Boilermaker traveled a long way to join the Purdue men’s swimming team. It took Guilherme Rego two days to get to West Lafayette.

Rego, a freshman in the School of Management, left his hometown of Recife, Brazil, and flew from there to another city in Brazil to go to Newark International Airport in New Jersey, where he had to stay overnight because the airplane was broken. From there he had to fly to Chicago and then into the Purdue Airport.

"It was a pretty bad experience," said Rego. "I got so frustrated. I was like, ‘I’m going back home.’ It was pretty hard staying at the airport; it was a whole new experience for me. It was kind of bad. I’m over it now."

Rego’s parents are supportive of him. They believe that it is important for him to get a college education, learn to be on his own and improve his swimming.

"They think it’s important to grow up by myself as an individual," he said. "They are happy about me being here."

Rego also said that he is happy to be at Purdue.

He said that he expects good times but not his best, as he and the 23rd-ranked men’s team compete against No. 24 Wisconsin Friday and Saturday in Minneapolis.

Rego is noted for his 200-meter breaststroke. He has only been beaten once this season in this event.

"He’s very likeable," said Coach Dan Ross. "If you find someone that doesn’t like (Rego), then there must be something fundamentally wrong with them. He’s a great kid.

"I always kid him and say ‘Whenever I see you, you’re always surrounded by women.’ He just smiles at me."

Rego has had a tough year so far. He is more than 4,000 miles away from his family, and his uncle died of cancer around Christmas while the team was in Hawaii.

"I hadn’t been home in four months at Christmas," said Rego. "My uncle had cancer for about three years, so we kind of saw it coming. But just being away from home and not being there with my family was pretty hard.

"It kind of affected my training, and I got really homesick," he said. "But the whole team really helped me a lot. Everybody was really there for me. That’s when I began to feel better because I saw how close they all are."

Rego participated in the Thank-A-Thon this fall where he called John Purdue Club members to thank them for their donations. He called it an enjoyable experience.

"I had a pretty good conversation with one of the ladies," said Rego.

"She said that her kid swims too. So we started talking about swimming. It was really fun," he said.

Ross said that Rego has done a great job this year and that he has trained hard.

"He’d do really well if he can just relax and just have fun with it," said Ross. "But he feels that he’s trained so hard and he feels like he’s really killed himself in the pool that he’s just worried that it’s not going to pay off. We tell him not to worry about anything. We tell him to just have fun, that he’s done the work — just relax now and rest."

Rego said that he is always worrying about something, whether it is his swim stroke, practice or academics.

"I don’t think that I’ve relaxed yet," said Rego. "Maybe after the Big Ten (Championships)."