JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – The Carson-Newman Eagles men's and women's swimming teams had the unique opportunity to try on and get sized properly for their new conference championship TYR (pronounced tier) swimming suits at the Maddox Swimming Pool on Wednesday afternoon.
The Eagles will be wearing these suits in during the Conference Championship Meets later this year, but it Wednesday was a chance for Coach Paige McCord's swimmers to get comfortable in their new suits.
"This was a neat opportunity for our athletes to actually get in the water and try them on," McCord said. "These suits are not cheap so it's nice that we get to play round with them a little bit."
Michael Stough is the Mideast Sales Representative for TYR, and he was on hand to help the Eagles with their new suits.
"We talked to Carson-Newman back in the summer about becoming a TYR team and they went all in with equipment, suits, and our apparel," Stough said. "So we wanted to gain the confidence of their swimmers with our championship suits so we're here to do a championship suit fitting."
Stough brought with him some of the best models that the TYR brand has to offer.
"We brought out the two different championship suits that we have for the college level," Stough said. "That is the AP12 which is the suit we brought out for the 2012 Olympics, and the Tracer B which is pretty much an identical technology it's just a different base so it fits all body types."
Freshman Samantha Starnes (Knoxville, Tenn.) explained how TYR's suits differ from other brands she's worn in her career.
"It's really a lot of compression and that will be good especially for my events which are the 50 and 100-yard freestyle," Starnes said. "The sizes definitely vary a lot so we had to had to try on a lot, but they feel great."
Starns and her teammates were glad to have Stough here to ask questions and try on various sizes.
"We had to all try on at least three suits, because we were fluctuating between different sizes so much," Starnes said.
"TYR coming on board and being such a huge sponsor of us really means quite a bit as far as the prestige of their name for our program and their support," McCord said.
Carson-Newman will next swim at the Fall Frenzy event from Nov. 22-23.
