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Kids On The Move: Shannon Bauer

08/27/2008 - By by Chad A. Safran

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NO CHALLENGE IS TOO BIG

Shannon Bauer is no different than the average 10-year-old girl. She likes Hannah Montana and cats. Her younger brother, Spencer, bothers her…on occasion. A trip to the local Dairy Queen is always fun, even though she doesn’t go as often as she would like. And she likes to swim.

 

Shannon, her mom Jackie, dad Tommy, and brothers, Austin Aronsson (21), Ian Aronsson (20), and Spencer (8), have been living in Manasquan for the past 15 years. Shannon is a member of The Atlantic Club’s Riptide swim team, competing with the sophomore group of 9 and 10 year olds. Like all the kids on her team, she practices three times a week for an hour in the summer and a bit more when school starts in September. She races with the team at its summer swim league meets with a strong competitive spirit.

 

“She has a fire that is unbelievable,” says Daniel Asencio, head swim coach at The Atlantic Club. “When she wants something she goes head first. If I had a hundred athletes with Shannon’s heart and fire, I’d be producing world-ranked athletes on a year-to-year basis.”

 

Her mother can take some of the credit for Shannon’s passion for the pool. A member of an age group, American record, freestyle relay team at the age of 14, and a swimmer at Florida State University, Jackie Bauer has had Shannon in the water almost from birth. Shannon never used swimmies or any other floatation device as Jackie wanted to make sure her daughter developed proper position in the water.

 

“She’s gifted physically,” says Jackie. “She’s had the exposure. We have a pool in our yard…she’s naturally competitive. When you put it all together, she surprises me.”

 

That’s not uncommon. Shannon has Down syndrome, but that does not prevent her from being a regular member of The Atlantic Club team. Special Olympics? Not for this girl! She knows all four basic swimming strokes – freestyle, breaststroke (her personal favorite), backstroke, and butterfly. Jackie was able to get U.S. Swimming to make an exception for her daughter, allowing Shannon to compete with non-challenged swimmers. Jackie labels her effort “an experiment” with terrific results. “Special-needs kids can participate in regular programs. If parents are dedicated to making it happen, the kids can do it,” she says. And Shannon certainly has. She has collected a few ribbons, has registered a time of 20.77 seconds for the 25-yard freestyle, and 52.36 seconds for the 50-yard freestyle. Not bad for a girl who colors just as intensely as she swims laps in the pool. Her times rank her around the middle of the pack of New Jersey girls her age, but the state is home to some of the best age group swimmers in the country, making Shannon’s efforts better than many across the country.

 

While her pool times are impressive, it is what Shannon’s mere presence brings to the team that makes even more of an impact. “[She] betters my swimmers, my coaches, my families, and me overall,” says Asencio, who is also a recruiting coordinator for Seton Hall’s swimming program. “It teaches children to open their minds and hearts…; they begin to judge people by how they act, not how they look.”

 

Shannon gets a lot of instruction from both her mother and Kirsten Hinds, another coach at The Atlantic Club. However, just because her mom coaches her doesn’t mean she gets off easy. “I’m her toughest critic,” says Jackie, who founded the club’s swim program more than 17 years ago. “Getting her mentally ready for practice is a challenge some days.”

 

Shannon has no plans to stop swimming any time soon, although she does have to squeeze it in between playing basketball, jumping on the trampoline, and learning to surf from Ian and Austin. Eventually, her goal is to swim for the Manasquan High School team and become a doctor, but for now she’ll have to settle on being a fourth grader at Manasquan Elementary School, where she enjoys math, reading, and science. “She loves school,” says Jackie. There had to be one thing that made her different from all the other kids!

 

STATS
FAVORITE RESTAURANT
Abbey B’s in Manasquan

 

FAVORITE MUSIC
Hannah Montana

 

FAVORITE MOVIE
Kit Kittredge©, All-American Girl

 

PET PEEVE
my younger brother, Spencer

 

THREE PEOPLE YOU WOULD LIKE TO PLAY WITH
Leah, Brianna, and Brinley  

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