Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 5/6/08 Section: News

Media Credit: John Hornberg Leyla Smith does a flip as part of the Santa Clara Aquamaids "Carmen" routine. The group was practicing for its national meet in Tucson, Ariz.

It's Tuesday at 7 a.m., and the alarm clock by the bed has an hour left before it rings, when, through the SJSU residence hall window, a woman yelling into a bullhorn and the theme from "Carmen" abolishes all possibility of sleep.

Below the penetrable walls of Campus Village and Joe West Hall, 10 pairs of defined legs burst out of the water, toes pointed. Ten smiling faces with red and gold sequin headpieces bob up and down and jerk abruptly from left to right.

"They're loud in the morning," said Jordan Miller, a freshman nursing major who lives on campus. "I would appreciate it if they kept it quiet."

Stephanie Lopez, a freshman interior design major, said the school shouldn't allow that kind of noise near student housing so early in the morning: "People need their rest."

Six times a week, synchronized swimmers from the Santa Clara Aquamaids, all of whom are on the U.S. national team, practice from 7 a.m. to noon at the Aquatic Center.

And that woman on the bullhorn whom some light sleepers living on campus loathe? She's the coach of the Aquamaids, Chris Carver, who has coached the U.S. Olympic team for the last three Summer Games.

"It's annoying because it's so early in the morning," said Anika Dove, a freshman nursing major.

Jimmy Martinez said he's gotten used to the crack-of-dawn ruckus, and he sometimes uses it in place of an alarm so he's not late for class.

"It bounces off the concrete," Carver said, referring the sound of her bullhorn. "I've tried turning the speaker around."

Carver said she's been coaching synchronized swimming since 1968, after her own stint as an aquatic ballerina and has been with the Aquamaids since 1980.

"(The sport) was not anything like it is now," she said.

She said she has coached most of the people on her team since they were 8 years old, the age when most people first start.

The two oldest members of the team are twins Bianca and Sonja Van der Velden, 32, from the Netherlands.

Two of the youngest members of the team are Nadia Rais, 16, and Kenyon Smith, 18, the latter whose participation has sparked controversy within the predominantly female sport.

Carver said that though Smith is one of the best on the team, he's limited to competing at a national level.

"He cannot do any kind of meet that leads to the Olympics," she said.

Carver said United States synchronized swimming used to be "on top."

"In Russia, this (sport) is big. In Canada, this is one of their two biggest sports," Carver said. "I think in this country, this is a football, basketball country. Those other countries really take it seriously."

The team left for its national meet in Tucson, Ariz. last Tuesday and competed in both a free routine and a technical routine, in which the team must do "certain things in certain order" and everything must be in unison, Carver said.

The free routine is set to music from the opera "Carmen," she said, because Smith is on the team and she wanted to choose music with a male part.

"You have to love it," she said, "but it's also for that reason that I admire them. There's just so many details because you have to be so much in unison. It just takes time."

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