Failure simply a step to success

Everyone fails.
Even the best athletes fall short of their goals.
It’s not the failure that matters, but rather how an athlete responds to it.
Anne Vormohr considered her effort at the 2014 IHSAA Girls Swimming and Diving State Finals to be a failure.
“Last year when I was done swimming I didn’t want to look anyone in the face,” the Jay County High School junior said Saturday. “I didn’t want to talk to anyone I was so ashamed.”
Her coach, Matt Slavik, says she was too hard on herself.
He’s right.
Finishing 11th in the state in the 100-yard backstroke, or anything else, can hardly be considered a failure. But to Vormohr, who had placed fifth in the event as a freshman, it was.
A number of factors may have played into her races at the state finals not going as well as she had hoped. Among them are that last winter’s harsh weather had wreaked havoc on the Patriots’ practice schedule.
Vormohr, however, wasn’t looking for excuses. She took the blame on her shoulders.
“There were factors that made me go that time. But a lot of it was myself,” she said Saturday. “I mean, I could have gone out and done other things to get me in shape, but I chose not to. And this year I chose different things …”
She and her teammates chose to take part in extra practices, to swim before school when it wasn’t required, to simply work harder. The result was the best postseason in Jay County girls swimming history.
The Patriots won their first sectional title, breaking record after record in the process. Four swimmers — Sophie Bader, Katy Smeltzer, Alex Bader and Vormohr — competed in eight events, including a pair of relays, at the state finals and finished 15th in the team standings.
Vormohr led the effort, chasing away the demons that had haunted her for the previous year.
Seeded eighth heading into the meet, she earned the No. 7 position in Friday’s preliminaries to guarantee herself a state medal.
And then, on Saturday, she broke her own school record with a career-best time — 55.79 seconds — to climb to fifth place again.
“To come in here and go a 55.79, that’s just awesome, because then I know … I can go even faster,” said Vormohr. “It’s just exciting.”
Smeltzer, the Bader sisters and Vormohr tied for ninth place in the 200 medley relay after entering the meet as the No. 12 seed. They added a 15th-place finish in the 200 freestyle relay.
In addition to her state-medal effort in the backstroke, Vormohr added an 11th-place finish in the 50 freestyle. Alex Bader matched that effort by placing 11th in the 100 breaststroke, and Sophie Bader took 16th in the 100 butterfly.
What led to the success for the four state swimmers was that they knew what was required to reach their goals. And they were willing to sacrifice in order to achieve them.
“They understand that it takes hard work to get to where you want to be,” said Slavik. “From my experience, not every good athlete has that. Not every good athlete has the drive and the determination.
“I’ve had a lot of girls that have swam for me in the past that never realized their potential because they couldn’t get the idea of a good work ethic and building upon successes, and embracing failures.
“We’ve had some setbacks. We got beat by Yorktown this year. Anne didn’t have a great state meet last year. Sophie and Alex have had some down times. Katy has had some down times.
“But every single one of them, they knew how to bounce back from adversity, and that’s a rarity in our youth. And to have that and have them as inspirational leaders for your team establishes the kind of culture we want to have at Jay County.”
For athletes, failure is simply a step toward success, as long as they continue on the journey.