The sound of laughter drifts across the pool deck on a hot summer evening, drowning out the splashing from the swimmers in the pool. Cheers echo in the humid air, and the building enthusiasm is palpable. It’s Monday, which means competition day for Brentwood Swim Club. It also means an outing for the entire Jurgiel family.

Ruby Jurgiel (10) first gained her love for the water alongside her three older siblings at the Brentwood Swim and Tennis Club on the Gators Swim Team. Since then, she has become a tri-sport athlete. Ruby swims and plays water polo for the Ladue School District as well as pursuing synchronized swimming with a YMCA team and playing club water polo for the St. Louis Lions.

Family

Ruby’s mom, Stacy Jurgiel, discovered the Brentwood Swim Club when her children were young. It was the family’s first swim club. While swimming eventually became an integral part of the Jurgiel family’s daily life, it started as a simple way to stay comfortable and escape the heat.

“Coming from Michigan, it was a little bit of a culture shock, and I couldn’t believe how hot the summers were,” Stacy said. “We immediately found a pool to join when we had kids so we could stay cool in the summer. They had a little lowkey swim team and we wanted to make sure everybody learned how to swim so we joined the swim team.”

As the children increased their team involvement, time management became very important. With an almost ten-year age gap between Ruby and her oldest sister, the Jurgiel parents were grateful for an activity that all participate in.

“It worked out great because… the whole family is all on the same team, so it’s very convenient,” Stacy said. ‘It’s one of the only sports where a wide variety of kids of different ages can all be on the same team, and you can be all there cheering each other on at the same time, at the same meet.”

This joint activity made it easier to coordinate their busy lives and maximize free time during the summer.

“The meets are on Monday nights and practices are every morning,” Stacy said. “It puts us all on the same schedule, on the same page, and that just makes for a much more enjoyable summer.”

However, preparing the Jurgiel children for a long, chaotic swim meet wasn’t easy. Stacy had to coordinate packing them up and sending them off to compete every week.

“[There were] lots of challenges, getting everybody suited up with their goggles and their towels and their snacks…” Stacy said. “Four kids off to a swim meet every Monday night. There’s a lot, but it was fun, too.”

In addition to supporting her children, Stacy found other ways to get involved on the swim team. Like many summer league teams, the Brentwood Swim Club relies on parent volunteers to help organize and host swim meets.

“They have parents that are parent representatives that coordinate all the volunteers…I was getting involved in being the parent representative for many years on the Brentwood Swim Club,” Stacy said. “It was a lot of work, but so fun. I loved meeting all the families and all the kids on the team… I personally learned a lot, and I found it really rewarding to be able to be that involved in the team that all my kids were on.”

Although Ruby is an avid swimmer now, her entry into the sport was actually one of convenience, based on the Jurgiel family’s interest. As the youngest child, she remembers automatically following in her siblings’ footsteps.

“When I was little, they all swam,” Ruby said. “So as I grew up, I just did what they did.”

Her older siblings, Olivia, Jojo and George, aged 25, 23 and 20, respectively, paved the way for Ruby on the Ladue High School swimming and water polo teams. Some siblings might resent this similarity, but Ruby grew to actually love it. She gained confidence from watching her siblings participate in sports throughout high school.

“It made me more comfortable, just knowing someone else did it and had fun doing it,” Ruby said. “I like having that similarity between us.”

Besides building confidence, sharing a passion for swimming and water polo has given Ruby’s family something to bond over. It’s also helped them to understand each other better through struggles and triumphs.

This connection is also meaningful to Ruby’s older siblings, especially her oldest sister Olivia. They are able to watch her journey and relate back to their own high school experiences as she succeeds and struggles in similar ways.

“It’s kind of cool, because it’s almost like watching it again happen from an outside lens,” Olivia said. “I know when I was in that experience, I remember not wanting to get up and go to an early practice Saturday morning, and seeing that same thing in Ruby. …but now I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, go… go take advantage.’”

Team

In addition to connections from her siblings, Ruby had pre-existing relationships built with teammates and coaches from her club water polo team, the St. Louis Lions.

“All the coaches know me already,” Ruby said. “And most of them, I hope, like me because they liked my siblings and they know what to expect from me.”

Despite being guided by her siblings’ legacy, Ruby found her own place on the swim team during her freshman year of high school. That year, the team graduated a large class of seniors, leaving this year’s roster with a high proportion of underclassmen. However, with some experience, Ruby looks to start the season strong.

“I’m excited to see us all come together because I know the captains last year brought everyone together,” Ruby said. “I think it’s gonna be interesting with the new freshmen and all the excitement.”

This familiarity has given Ruby the chance to forge her own path in a water sport that none of her siblings pursued: synchronized swimming. Years ago, she found a team at a nearby YMCA, where she still trains today.

“I think synchro was such a big growth avenue for her, because it’s a tiny team, and it was a team…of all ages,” Stacy said. “When she started off she was the youngest one on the team, when she was about 8 or 9 years old…So you just really learn a lot from the older kids.”

Ruby’s interactions with these older teammates taught her valuable lessons, not only for synchronized swimming but for her future as well. Joining the team at a young age shaped Ruby into a role model for her younger teammates.

Growth

Like many young children, Ruby was not instinctively comfortable in the water. In fact, her parents had to enroll her in countless swimming lessons before she finally learned how to be relaxed.

“I never thought she would become a swimmer, because she took so long getting comfortable just putting her face in the water,” Stacy said.

Since, Ruby has conquered bubble-blowing and moved on to more advanced mental and technical challenges. Her aquatic abilities form the basis for all of her sports, but each one has its own unique skill set.

“You need to know how to swim for both [swimming and water polo],” Ruby said. “But swimming is all personal… and mental… versus [with] water polo [you] communicate with the teammates and throw the ball to them. It’s more about communication with the team versus individual performance.”

All of the sports that Ruby competes in require hard work and dedication, but each takes on a very different form of competition. Water polo and swimming, for example, center around fierce racing while synchronized swimming draws mainly from artistic performance.

“[With] swimming, you’re almost competing against yourself for faster time,” Stacy said. “Water polo is such a team sport, you’ve got to be really in sync with the other players. And, obviously, synchronized swimming is all about being in sync and making the athleticism look… very easy.”

Because they are so diverse, the three sports round out Ruby’s athletic identity. She works hard to maintain this balance, despite the demanding schedule and workload.

“Last year, she took a year off of synchro because she wanted to…play a high school sport and have that high school team mentality,” Olivia said. “She said that she really, really missed synchro, and that’s why she’s trying to do all three now. […] Even though it’s not part of the high school sports, [she’s] gonna still try to squeeze them all in. I feel like that’s something that takes a lot of dedication to make sure you make time for things that you love.”

These activities have taught Ruby more than just speed and coordination. They’ve left her with life lessons she is able to carry with herself beyond an athletic career.

“You learn about how to be a good competitor, how to be a gracious winner and a gracious loser and how to push yourself and persevere,” Stacy said. “Sports do so much of that.”

Sports have also taught Ruby to take pride in her achievements when hard work pays off. Her perseverance makes her feel accomplished and fulfilled once all is done.

“When [I’m] done with a practice or done with a meet, [I like] being able to look back and say, ‘I did that, I just swam that entire set,’” Ruby said.