SS or VM?

Anatomy of a Sprinter

By: Bobby Puppione

VinceMartinez: A Castro Valley High School graduate that tears through the swimming pool when he races.

Well, Vince Martinez's Super Sport is just a symbol of the speed he has when he gets in the water to compete in his races. A former JV football player, Martinez made a transition to swimming after his sophomore year and never stopped winning.

During his early years in high school, Martinez had the body for a football player. While excelling on the gridiron for the Trojans, he began to participate in a Summer Swim League. While swimming for the Columbia Crocodiles in Castro Valley he showed great potential. Coach Nora Crans sent him to the Pleasanton Seahawks to swim for an U.S.S. competitive team.

His sophomore year, Martinez went to the North Coast Section Championships as an alternate. The next year, he was there as one of the favorites. During his junior campaign, he swam to NCS titles in the 50 and 100-yard freestyles. He first won the 50-yard freestyle in 21.20, beating Lick-Wilmerding's Ben Tolbringer (21.55). He led the race from beginning to end. In the 100-yard free, he did just the same. He beat Campolindo's Justin Chiles by almost a second to win in a time of 45.70.

During the summer between his Junior and senior year, Martinez participated in the Junior Western Regional in Alaska. His efforts there led coaches from all around to look at this star-studded swimmer.

This past high school season, Martinez cruised though his races in the 50 and 100-yard freestyles until getting to the NCS finals. This year, he was out-dueled in the 50 by Wildman-Tobringer. Martinez was just three-tenths shy of Tobringer's winning time of 21.04. Discouraged over his loss, Martinez came out strong in the 100 Freestyle, taking home the championship in a time of 45.15. His times in both races were improvements over last year's winning marks.

Before heading off in the fall on a swimming scholarship to the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Martinez will participate in the sectional qualifying meet for the National Championships. Although one of the favorites in both his races, Martinez has to make the qualifying standards to swim at the National Championships. Either way, this "super sport" has many more races to come in the future.

From the end of the bench is a weekly column featuring  a star athlete in the East Bay.  Bobby Puppione is a  sports  writer for the Castro Valley Forum and EastBaySports.com.  You can contact him at pup@soccer.com or at bamapup@expn.com.