Photo by Willem Ytsma ‘16
For three weeks this season, sophomore swimmer Greg Grewal was forced to stand to the side with a shoulder injury. Now back and healthy, Grewal proved himself well with strong performances at Loyola and Bucknell Universities.
He set the pool record for Lehigh’s Jacobs Pool with a time of 57.24 seconds in the 100-meter breaststroke on Nov. 22.
Grewal calls the race one of his favorite in his collegiate career.
“When I was in high school, I tried to get recruited at Lehigh but fortunately—unfortunately at the time—[the coach] told me I was too slow to swim for them. So I have a personal vendetta against Lehigh,” Grewal said. “I just sprinted as fast as I could. When I started to fatigue in the final 25 yards, I just remembered what the Lehigh coach told me in high school and that pushed me to finish strong. All I could think about was beating Lehigh and I was extremely happy with the result.”
In avenging Lehigh’s recruitment mistake, Grewal helped Lafayette score an impressive nine points in the competition, despite the men’s team losing to Lehigh 196-92. Grewal also finished second in the 200-meter breaststroke with a time of 2:09.09, less than a second behind Lehigh’s first-placer Kevin Huntley ‘17.
Lafayette Coach Jim Dailey was impressed with Grewal’s performance over the Lafayette-Lehigh weekend, and throughout the entire season.
“That was by far the fastest dual meet I have had the chance to be a party of since the early 90’s when I started,” Dailey said. “Most of our swimmers, Greg included, swam either personal best times or better than what they did at last year’s Patriot League Championships and we weren’t tapered at all.”
So what does the future hold for Grewal? He is looking forward to a team trip to Plantation, Fla. over winter break, and hoping the team takes it seriously as an opportunity to improve. Past that, he is ecstatic for the Patriot League Championships in mid-February, due to Lafayette’s win over American University for the first time ever earlier this season.
Grewal’s path to Lafayette’s men swim team was a quick and easy one. Following a successful career at Downingtown West High School, Greg’s guidance counselor advised him to look at Lafayette for a strong engineering education. Knowing that he wanted to swim in college, Grewal contacted Dailey and soon found himself on an official recruiting visit with Nate Witmer ‘15, currently one of Grewal’s best friends. Following a successful Early Decision II application, Grewal landed a spot on the Lafayette men’s swimming roster.
But there’s more to Greg Grewal than the dark goggles and swim cap. Outside of swimming, Grewal spends much of his time doing work for his chemical engineering major and is a peer math tutor. He recently joined the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, and in his free time watches swimming videos and old animated Disney Movies.