By Seth Schwartz
Staff Writer

Before coming to Purdue, Lindsay Lange had already accomplished one of her main goals — qualifying for the Olympic Trials in the 100 yard breaststroke.

Coach Cathy Wright-Eger called Lange, a freshman from Oak Harbor, Ohio, the women’s swimming team’s most talented incoming freshman.

"We’ve had athletes make Olympic Trials before, but usually they’ve made them once they got here. For her already to have that time standard put her in a whole different tier of recruiting," Wright-Eger said.

Lange said, "Now that I’ve qualified, it’s really exciting to tell that to people but people ask me, ‘So I’ll see you at the Olympics?’ I have another step to go through."

Although she had made the Olympic Trials, Lange was not a swimmer who had done the whole series of training.

She wasn’t familiar with the two—a—day practices, said Wright-Eger.

Lange was scared going away to college and almost went to a Division III school close to home. However, she fit in with the team as soon as she got to Purdue.

Wright-Eger contributed part of that to the rest of the freshman class that came in this year.

"It doesn’t bother me to be away from home anymore," said Lange. "It’s hard but I have so much support from the team, and I can talk to anyone so it’s great."

Lange and the rest of the Purdue women’s swim team (6-0, 4-0 Big Ten) will compete against 13th ranked Wisconsin, No. 14 Minnesota and Illinois this weekend in Minneapolis.

Lange has Purdue’s top 100-meter breaststroke time, the third—best 200-meter breaststroke and is fourth on the team in the 50-meter freestyle.

In the Big Ten, Lange is 14th in the conference, but Wright-Eger said that most of the times that were better than Lange's were due to the swimmers tapering and shaving before the meets.

"That means that they rested and got really pumped up for this one meet," said Wright-Eger. "Lindsay has not rested yet, so for her to be 14th and having a handful of these people ahead of her who had already shaved, that’s good. That is really nice."

Tapering is when a player rests before a meet in order to get their best time.

On a road trip this year, Lindsay said that she had a "pump-up tape." The song was called "You’re So Special." Wright-Eger called it Lange’s theme song.

The song showed her naïveté because it was a slow song, said Wright-Eger.

"It was not a rock 'n' roll song or a country song; it was almost like a children’s song," said Wright-Eger.

Lange and a friend of hers from home got the tape from her friend’s mother, and they listened to it.

"It was actually the stupidest thing we’ve ever heard," said Lange.

Then, last year at the state championships in Ohio, they played the song nonstop.

"I like it now," she said. "I make people listen to it. It makes me feel really good. If I’m in a bad mood, I listen to it."

Wright-Eger is treating this year as an adjustment year for Lange.

"I just want to make sure that I don’t push her beyond where she needs to be at this young part of her swimming career," she said. "We both said that after Big Tens and after her championship season, then we’ll turn the notch up a little bit."

Going into this weekend’s meet, Lange said that she was really excited.

"I’m going to go out and work my hardest, but the results could be good or bad," said Lange.