Molly Moore and I are sitting across from each other at her kitchen table, discussing everything from summer travel destinations to our favorite foods.
Of course, Molly’s incredible high school swimming accomplishments was what I thought would be the main topic of the afternoon when I brought it up.
But that wasn’t exactly the case.
Molly’s true story is one of keeping her family and friends close, working hard is all aspects of her life and showing kindness every day.
“I want to be Ryan who swims, not Ryan the swimmer,” she said, quoting the 11-time Olympic swim medalist Ryan Lochte. “It’s been my motto pretty much. I want to be Molly who swims, and she swims when she needs to. But I don’t want to be known as Molly the swimmer. Like that’s the only thing I’m known for.”
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Molly’s mother, Linda, sits next to her daughter, equally as engaged in our hour-long conversation.
Linda said, “We’ve talked about it a lot; just her and I. You’ve just got to have that balance, because you don’t want to burn out. You want to enjoy it for a long time.”
To help her balance out swimming, school and her personal life, Molly keeps a goal board on her bedroom wall, which often features more Ryan Lochte quotes.
Now that she’s met some of her goals, like winning the 50 Freestyle at the state meet in February and setting a new record at the Springfield Natatorium, she checked them off and is ready to win more medals and set more records.
But the board also comes in handy when she needs reminding of life outside of the pool.
Or her life off the trails when she’s not at cross country practice – another sport she loves.
“Sometimes I go straight from cross country to swimming. It’s double commitment, but you’ve still got to do it,” Molly said.
“We’re still in this catch-22 of a life balance of sports and enjoying family and friends,” said Linda. “It’s hard because it becomes their life. She practices two times a day and sometimes she has to get three practices in with morning practices and then cross country and then swimming.”
“But you feel successful at the end of the day after those practices,” Molly added.
PROUD TO BE A WARRIOR
She thanks her school, New Covenant Academy, a private Christian school, for a lot of the success she has had.
“We have tons of athletes in our student body,” Molly explained, also mentioning her own class of 37 students. “Like baseball, the majority of our guys at our school play baseball. Lots of people play volleyball. Lots of people play soccer. And it’s just this continuous cycle of spring sports and fall sports, so everybody is doing something all the time. And the teachers understand that.”
Being a private school, academic excellence is still expected though.
“They’ll work with you if you need help,” Molly said of her teachers. “I think that’s one of the bonuses of going to a private school, too. You get that one-on-one with teachers that you don’t really get at public schools. You’re more comfortable.”
To sum it up, New Covenant Academy is like its own community, and it’s very tight-knit and proud of its athletes.
Molly said her teachers and athletic director even created a “good luck” video for their cross country and swimming teams as they went to state.
“They went to each class and said ‘Good luck!’ to us. They sent it to us when we were up in St. Louis. It was so… you just felt so happy and joyful when they sent it,” Molly smiled.
Linda said, “It was like the entire school was pulling for them. It’s different in a small, private school.”
Molly nodded and said, “Every sport pulls for every other sport.”
Confusing a large portion of high school sports fans in the area, The Warriors also include another private school in their tight-knit community.
Merely 1.1 miles south of where the Warriors are lies Summit Preparatory School, which funds New Covenant’s cross country and swimming programs.
In other words, they’re a co-op.
“They support it more than just financially. They support the kids who do it, too,” said Linda.
IT’S IN HER ‘GENE POOL’
Like any other day, Molly went to a Springfield Aquatics club (SPA) practice at Drury University.
Bombarded by giggling friends upon Molly’s arrival, she was shown a photograph taken in the early 1990s of her mother, then Linda Scheer, a four-year swimmer when she attended the Springfield college.
“That big ‘fro hair,” Linda laughed, rolling her eyes.
Linda, as well as her twin sister, Laura (McCune) and older brother Kevin, all swam for the Panthers, and before that, they were Glendale Falcons.
All passing on their swimming talents to their children, Laura’s twin daughters, Katie and Claire, swim on Molly’s team, and Kevin’s daughter, Grace, swims for Ozark.
Even her dad, Mickey, is athletic as he coaches golf at New Covenant and grew up playing tennis.
“It goes way back,” Linda said, chuckling. “It’s definitely in our gene pool.”
So on top of the support she gets from her school, teammates and coaches, Molly is deeply influenced by her swimming mother, who also coached at Kickapoo for eight years.
“She’s beaten all my times,” Linda said. “Even in college, she’s beaten every single one of them. She crushed them, really.”
Growing up on the pool deck can generate results like that.
“She literally learned to walk on the pool deck,” said Linda. “It’s funny because her high school coach, Alex Miller, swam when I was coaching. So he was in high school and he remembers coming into practice and she’d just be sitting there. I mean, she couldn’t walk yet, and there’d be kickboards stacked all the way around her so that she wouldn’t topple over and hit her head on the concrete. Alex was like, ‘I remember that!’”
She smiled, turned to her daughter and said, “She’s got it in her blood. She can’t help it.”
Putting her natural talent to work, Molly swims with SPA several days a week.
Also a cross country athlete, Molly runs when she gets the time to build her endurance, strength and make her a better swimmer.
“Running helps my speed in the pool. I swim sprints but run distance,” Molly said.
Linda said, “One of her strengths in swimming, and all of her coaches will say this, is her kick. She has a really strong kick. I would think that running helps that. She’s got a crazy kick.”
“It builds muscles that you need for swimming, but actually swimming won’t let you build,” said Molly.
They both agree Molly’s coaches have a lot to do with her major improvement since joining SPA at age three.
Linda said, “Molly has been blessed with some really great coaches, as far as her club coaches go, and even Alex has a desire for her to be better. He gets so excited for them. And Mike Workman (cross country), he’s a phenomenal coach. To have that in her life is a blessing because you don’t always have that.”
She turned to her daughter and said, “You can look at every sport you’ve ever done and you have been blessed with some phenomenal coaching. And that kind of guides you. Not just in athletic ability, but also in real life applications.
LIFE OUTSIDE THE POOL
Molly is one of those teenagers that gets really excited about camp.
Camp Kanakuk, that is.
A nine-year-long camper at the Christian sports camp, Molly gets to stay active in several sports, not just limited to swimming.
She also enjoys teaching others the art of the swimming. Molly takes two weeks out of her summers to teach one to four year olds how to swim.
Molly is also looking at picking up a new sport in 2017.
New to her and the Missouri State High School Athletics Association, Molly wants to throw javelin during track season.
I told my coach, ‘If you buy a javelin, I will so do javelin.’ He said okay! We have friends from church who threw it last year for the exhibition. Just something about throwing a spear is exciting.”
“I’m glad we have 12 acres for her to practice on, so she can practice way out there,” Linda joked.
In addition, she’s involved with FBLA and FCA at her school, and her church, Trinity Lutheran.
“My number one goal in everything I do, winning or losing, is to glorify Christ,” Molly said.
GOING FOR ANOTHER GOLD
But soon enough, Molly will start focusing more and more on how to retain her 50 Freestyle title.
The day of Molly’s gold win, Linda shared the news on social media.
2003 100 Butterfly state champion Andrew Walker, coached by Linda during her time at Kickapoo, commented on her post, saying he knew how hard she must have worked to get to that point.
Linda said, “To me, it was one of those moments you’re like, somebody else understands how hard it is. As a parent now and coach before, I knew how hard Andrew worked to get there, how hard he trained and what he sacrificed because that was his goal. He could see that in her. It really was a dream come true for me to see her do that.”
“Molly’s a good kid,” Linda said, grinning at her daughter. “She works hard. She trains hard.”
Molly looked at her mom, smiled and said, “She’s a good motivator.”
