Greenwood freshman Emmanuel Jackson has established himself as one of the county’s top sprint freestylers.
Rob Baker | For the Daily Journal
Over the past couple of years, the top few steps on the podiums at the county and sectional meets have been almost entirely red and blue, with Center Grove and Franklin swimmers dominating across the board.
Emmanuel Jackson is hoping to break up that color scheme with an infusion of green.
The freshman has already been making his presence felt this winter, leading the charge for what might be the best Greenwood boys team in quite some time. At the Johnson County meet in December, Jackson was second in the 50-yard freestyle (22.84 seconds) and third in the 100 free (50.57), the lone swimmer to break up the Trojan-Grizzly Cub lock on top-three finishes.
It’s somewhat rare to see ninth-grade boys make such an immediate impact in the pool — especially in the sprint freestyle events, which usually favor older and more physically developed swimmers. But Jackson, newly 15 years old, is a bit of an outlier, bringing more strength and athleticism than most people his age.
That muscle served him well as an age-group swimmer — Jackson landed top-1o finishes in the 50-meter freestyle and 100 butterfly at the Indiana Swimming Age Group State Championships last summer — but it’s necessary just to keep up now that he’s racing against older competition with the Woodmen.
“It’s a really big switch,” Jackson said of the adjustment to high school swimming. “Most of the meets that we’re at I have top-tier racing partners to go against, and that’s a good thing.”
Jackson’s success in the water is all the more surprising given that he’s not a year-round swimmer. He spent the bulk of his time this past fall on the soccer pitch, where he made an immediate impact — Jackson scored a team-high seven goals while helping the Woodmen finish with a winning record for the first time in school history.
Though he did log some swim practice time during soccer season, there was still some catching up to do in terms of building the necessary aerobic base for the winter.
“There’s obviously such thing as in water shape and out of water shape,” Greenwood coach Brooke Gilles said. “There’s definitely a difference there where he might be in good running shape and cardio and all that type of stuff, and that kind of translates a little bit to the water, but it just takes time.”
Additionally, Jackson has been dealing with an ailing shoulder since the preseason, and he’s been sick for the past few weeks. He’s capable of helping the Woodmen in any number of events — as an eighth-grader, he won a county title in the 200-yard freestyle and a conference crown in the 100 breaststroke — but Gilles has opted to slot him into the 50 and 100 freestyles for the championship meets this year because she sees those as his best path to scoring big points at next month’s sectional and possibly qualifying for the state meet.
His times from the county meet would have slotted him in the top six of those events at last year’s sectional; with the benefit of a full taper over the coming weeks, the hope is that a fully healthy and rested Jackson can place even higher.
“I think there’s definitely room for improvement, not just in those two events but in any of the events,” Gilles said. “When he’s in practice, he’s very focused in on, ‘This is what I’ve got to do to achieve this goal’ … I think with that type of mindset that he brings into here, not only just that talent alone … I think that he could really blow it out of the water.”
On the way, Jackson is hoping to make some long-overdue alterations to Greenwood’s school record board. With the exception of Conner Peckinpaugh breaking the 500 freestyle mark in 2021, the boys side has not seen a change since 2010 (and none in an individual event since 2006).
With a solid group of teammates currently around to complement Jackson, including juniors Arya Gokhale and Ethan Rose and seniors Ben Wehnert and Lucas Young, and a very strong age-group contingent coming in over the next year or two from the Greenwood Gators swim club, some edits could well be forthcoming.
Once he’s on the starting block, though, Jackson isn’t thinking about records or the stopwatch; he’s focused on simply going faster than the people beside him.
Beat them, and the broken records will eventually take care of themselves.
“I just want to perform my best, go out and race, because that’s what I do best,” Jackson said. “I do better when I don’t look at the times and I just go out and race people.”
