Palo Verde athlete does the undoable

Senior to be school's first recipient of black letter

SM/SL/CN/VIEW--Palo Verde's High School Swimming Team Ashley Johannes starts her womens 100 yard freestyle race from the starting blocks at UNLV's Natatorium Saturday May 14, 2005. View photo Henry Vargas.

To say that not many high school students participate in three varsity sports a year for all four of their years would be an understatement because nobody does it. Nobody but Palo Verde senior Ashley Johannes. She will become the school's first-ever black letter athlete when she completes her fourth season swimming for the Panthers on Saturday, when Palo Verde participates in the NIAA Nevada State Swimming and Diving Championships at the Lombardi Recreation Center in Reno.

To become a black letter athlete at Palo Verde, a student must play three varsity sports for all four of his or her years. To just make a varsity team as a freshman is a difficult enough task.

Johannes began her historic senior year playing doubles with Lauren Centralla on the state-champion Palo Verde girls tennis team coached by Zach Brandt. The Panthers went a perfect 12-0 in conference and 15-1 overall en route to beating Reno, 25-20 in the state title match in October, giving the senior her first and only state title in her four years at the Summerlin school.

"That was just great," Johannes said. "The whole team went up for state and we ended up taking state."

Johannes spoke of how she decided to get back into the sport she had played since she was a child.

"I was going back-and-forth between tennis and soccer until high school," she said. "I then decided I should try out for tennis. I had been out of tennis for about two years before I started freshman year. So I did summer intramurals and got back in the swing of things and I ended up making the team."

After helping the Panthers win a state title on the tennis court, it was time for soccer season -- a winter sport for 4A high school girls in Southern Nevada. Johannes, the goaltender for Palo Verde, started the season off with four straight shutouts and allowed only six goals in the Panthers first seven games.

Palo Verde (15-1-2), behind the stellar netminding of all-Northwest Division selection Johannes, made it all the way to the Southern Nevada State Championship for a second straight year but lost to Northwest rival Centennial, 3-1 in the title game in February.

"Ashley Johannes is a very special girl," said Panthers soccer coach Marc Hechter. "When she finishes the swimming season this year, she'll be the first in Palo Verde history to be a four-year player in three different sports."

Johannes said she was gently nudged toward soccer by another coach.

"I got into soccer because of my tennis coach (Brandt)," Johannes said. "When I was younger, I didn't have that much foot speed and he said get into soccer and it will help increase your foot speed."

Johannes hung up the soccer cleats and grabbed her swimming cap to make a seamless transition into her third sport. Panthers swimming coach Bob Nicholson spoke of Johannes' auspicious debut in the pool.

"It's funny," Nicholson said. "I was her art instructor and she said, 'I'll join.' When she got in the pool, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, the girl can hardly swim. She's very awkward. But let's see what she does.' And the next thing you know, by the end of that season, she was in regionals. That's how fast she came along. And she could hardly swim."

Johannes reverberated the coach's perception.

"Coach Nich (Nicholson) made me a deal," Johannes said. "He said try out for a week, let me know how it goes and if you're having a good time keep doing it but if you don't like it, I'll write a letter or I'll talk to the softball coach and excuse you from the last week (of swimming tryouts). At first I thought, you know, 'I'm going to drown.' But once I started getting the hang of things and learned how to breathe ... the first year alone was such an improvement for me."

And the great tennis and soccer player had suddenly discovered a sport she may have even enjoyed more than the others.

"She was amazing," Nicholson said. "She just came around and listened to what I had to tell her and she got in there and the next thing you know, she had the technique, she had the power and the drive and she became a great swimmer.

"And by the end of the season she had lettered and was one of our finest swimmers ... in one year. And that's what I mean about inclusion and never cutting any kids from our swim program. Had we seen her, we might have cut her. From an awkward little girl to a black letter athlete."

Now wrapping up a memorable high school career, Johannes hoped to cap it off properly by helping Palo Verde's girls try to win a state title today and Saturday in Reno. Johannes, who has made the state meet every year, has had among the best 16 individual times in Las Vegas in the 50-yard, 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle as well as some backstroke and butterfly events.

In the Sunset Regional at UNLV on May 14, Johannes finished second in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 25.7 to qualify her for state in the event.

Nicholson said Johannes' efforts will be crucial to the team's overall success.

"Her performance will be vital for us at both the regionals and state," he said.

Johannes said her biggest memory in her four years at Palo Verde was a simple realization that she was improving in the sport that was the newest to her.

"My biggest memory in my high school career was at regionals at UNLV a couple years ago," Johannes said. "I was trying to qualify and drop some time from my 200 IM (intermediate medley) and my 100 fly (butterfly) and I had ended up dropping like 10 seconds off my (best) 200 IM (time), and 12 (seconds) I think off my 100 fly and it just shocked me. I remember just crawling out of the pool."

Johannes, who maintains a 3.6 grade-point average and has received the Scholar Athlete Award all four years, said she now enjoys swimming the most.

"I would have to say I like swimming the best," she said. "In swimming, I haven't got tired of it. I love it. Every year I'm excited to see who's here and what new swimmers we have. The whole group is just an awesome group. We all love each other like a family."

And though two junior colleges have sought after her as a soccer player, Johannes is mulling the idea of continuing swimming at a local college that will keep her close to everything she loves.

"Two schools have looked at me for soccer (Western Nevada Community and Dixie State) but with soccer I'm not happy anymore, so I kind of turned them down," Johannes said. "And I'm not sure about tennis. For people (schools) to look at you, you need to do a lot of individual tournaments and I've been a doubles player.

"I talked to the UNLV coaches yesterday about swimming and they're interested in me. Everything that I've looked at has made my decision to stay (and attend UNLV) so relevant. I want to go into nursing and they have a good nursing program there. I can use the Millennium (Scholarship). I can stay at home or stay in the dorms, whichever I want. I can walk on the tennis or soccer teams."

Johannes said she will miss her high school coaches and teammates.

"Every single coach that I've had, from tennis to soccer to swimming, I've just had a great, bonding relationship with all of them," she said. "The relationships we have go beyond the pool or the tennis courts or the soccer field.

"We hang out over the weekends, we get together, I baby-sit some of the coaches' kids. I'm going to miss them all a lot. I'm glad that I'm looking at UNLV because I can still come back and help the tennis team out and hit some balls with them."

The multi-talented senior reflected on what it meant to her being the only black letter athlete in her school's history.

"As school starts ending down, (being a black letter athlete) gets me more excited," Johannes said. "But during the beginning of the school year I didn't think much about it. It's a bonus. I just love playing sports. To get this is just an extra bonus on top of that."

Johannes' swimming coach -- the man who, on a dare, got her involved in the sport she loves most -- said he knows how unique she really is.

"It's (finding an athlete that excels in three different sports) rare. Very rare," Nicholson said. "The multiplicity of sports and diversity of sports that she's chosen is huge. And I think that speaks well of her talents."