Spring Male Athlete of the Year

If the rise stays the course, Swilling will take home a state title to close his high school career next spring.

Swilling’s strong season in the high jump and his state medal finish have earned him the honor of The Daily Citizen’s 2012 All-Area Spring Boys Athlete of the Year. The All-Area Spring Teams are chosen by the newspaper’s sports staff with input from coaches at Christian Heritage, Coahulla Creek, Dalton, Murray County, North Murray, Northwest Whitfield and Southeast Whitfield.

The 6-foot-4-inch Swilling — who also plays basketball and has been North Murray’s starting quarterback in each of the Mountaineers’ first two varsity seasons — hit his growth spurt in middle school, which is the same time he started competing in the high jump. He also participated in the 200-meter dash this spring, but launching himself off the ground and over the bar is his signature event for the Mountaineers.

Swilling shares a lot physical attributes with Mountaineers track and field coach Eric Bishop, who is also North Murray’s boys basketball coach and Swilling’s cousin. While a member of the University of North Carolina’s men’s track and field team, Bishop won back-to-back NCAA titles and five ACC titles in high jump competition. He also came extremely close to a bid for the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, finishing fifth at the U.S. Olympic Trials.

“Brady has been around it for a while so he knows the technique,” Bishop said. “So there isn’t a lot of coaching that goes on, aside from fine-tuning. He knows the technique. He could watch himself on film and fix his technique and mistakes.”

Relative or not, Bishop’s high jump resumé gives his praise of his cousin and pupil plenty of weight.

“Brady is in a unique situation in that he plays three sports,” Bishop said. “The weight he gains from football hurts him in high jump, but in between he has basketball and he loses a bit of that upper-body muscle. By the time track comes around, he has grown accustomed to being explosive.”

Swilling’s middle school growth spurt developed a physique suited for the event.

“Traditionally you want a lanky build, taller and thinner, for the high jump,” Bishop said. “Brady’s strength lies in his ahtleticism. Usually there’s two different types of jumpers: power and speed. He’s kind of a combination of the two. This year he has moved a little more away from speed and more to power.”

This season Swilling lived up to the high bar his potential automatically sets. He notched a personal best in the first meet of the spring at 6 feet, 8 inches, and he finished first in every other meet during the regular season, too. He kept up the unbeaten streak in the first two legs of the GHSA postseason, winning with a jump of 6-6 at the Region 7-2A meet — hosted by North Murray — and taking first at 6-4 at the Class 2A West sectional meet at Greater Atlanta Christian.

Then, at the state meet in Jefferson, he missed 6-4 twice before clearing that height, as well as 6-6. After Oglethorpe County’s Maurice Freeman set the bar at 6-8, Swilling barely clipped the bar in an attempt to match his personal best and finished third.

Still, Swilling calls the season a success.

“I was definitely happy about it, but there’s obviously room for improvement,” he said.

The improvement lies in the area of practice and pushing himself. If he can push himself to jump higher in practice, he believes he will be as good as anyone in Class 3A — North Murray’s athletic home for the 2012-2013 school year, when the GHSA will expand from five classes to six.

“In practice I jumped a lot at low heights,” he said. “I’ve always just put it at 6-4 and cleared it.”

Bishop said the mental side of competition is key in high jump. He’s seen some improvement from Swilling in that regard, though.

“I always had a hard time pushing myself,” Bishop said. “With high jump and shot put and events like those, you always lose. Even if you beat everyone, the bar goes up and you eventually miss. You never come from a meet and say, ‘I cleared everything,’ because the bar always goes higher and eventually you don’t clear it.

“Another thing is his aggressiveness. Brady is kind of like me in that he’s laidback and likes to play around. But when it comes time to do something, Brady has just gotten to where he can flip that switch and be a cut-throat competitor.”

With his fifth-place finish in 2011, Swilling became the first North Murray athlete to medal at state. With the progress he showed in 2012, he now he has another goal in mind.

And the leap needed to reach that objective is clearly defined.

“Only two more spots,” Swilling said.

North Murray High School Mountaineers

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Spring Male Athlete of the Year

NM’s Swilling soars above the rest for top honor

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