Throughout the history of Orestimba High School athletics department, one sport is often forgotten about: swimming. For more than a decade, the sport has been gone, with the belief that it couldn’t return.

However, that changed recently. In large part of an effort from Athletic Director John Labno and student interest, the program is now back with a girls swim team.

The team will consist of around 15 students-athletes, Labno stated. The program will host its first meet in more than 15 years on March 18.

The previous iteration of the program used a pool at the Newman Plunger, the city’s previous recreation facility located near the high school, to practice and compete at meets since Orestimba didn’t have a pool at the time. 2005 was the final year the pool was used by not only the school’s swim team, but also for recreational activities. The City of Newman closed and demolished the center and its over 50-year old pool due to its deterioration, raising health and safety concerns. The area would later be replaced by the Newman Skate Plaza, which opened in May 2017.

With the closure of the pool, members of the swimming team swam at Patterson High School individually under Orestimba’s name, Labno said. Labno became the AD in 2007, which were the team’s final seasons. Eventually, the program shut down in 2010 with four student-athletes participating.

With no pool, the possibility of the program coming back became an afterthought. However, with the help of Measure X, a more than $25 million bond measure that passed in November 2020, a pool was built at Orestimba, reopening discussions of a swimming team. Today, the pool is also used by community members for swimming lessons.

The idea of bringing back the swim team from the ground up started through a discussion through Home Campus, a clearance website used by the school’s athletics department. On the site, students enter information about their physical and what sports they’re interested in. For the past couple of years, Labno said, the demand for a swim team was there, with more than 20 students asking about it. While the interest was clearly there, Labno couldn’t find a head coach, with not even a single applicant for the position.

“Sitting here and looking at the pool everyday, I’m thinking, ‘We built this pool. The district spent money on that. We need to have a swim team,’” he said.

In order to get a team, Labno decided to take matters into own hands and become the head coach. However this isn’t the first time that he’s taken over a program amid a search for a head coach. In June 2023, he took over as head coach of Orestimba’s flag football team, two months before its inaugural season, after a lack of applicants for the opening.

With firsthand experience of building a program, one message remained a constant: Ask for help. It’s what helped him to develop a winning culture in flag football.

With little to no experience in swimming, Labno reached out to someone with extensive experience in leading a swim program, Howard Tremble, the head coach of the Hilmar High swim team. Trimble took over and formed the Yellowjackets team in 2010. Since his arrival, the program has continued raising the standard, as the boys swimming team finished as a runner-up in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division III team championships in 2024.

But this wasn’t Tremble’s first rodeo of building a program from the ground up. Prior to his stop at Hilmar, he helped build a swim program at Central Catholic High. During the first two years as the Yellowjackets head coach, Tremble was also coaching for Livingston High School’s swim team.

Tremble helped Labno with setting up a schedule, he said. For the Hilmar head coach, he wanted to give the student-athletes “a venue to be able to display their talents and find success.” This is especially since some of those athletes were from Newman when he coached the Hilmar Hammerheads, a recreational swimming team.

“I know how hard it is firsthand, that starting programs [is] very difficult, especially without knowledge of what to do,” Tremble said. “I’m kind of excited to see how their program is starting, and [I’m] willing to kind of give him any energy and help I can to really make them be successful so we could be going against Orestimba for the next 10 years.”

He also gave Labno tips of what the workouts should look like, the type of events to expect in an invitational while advising him that it's going to take some time for the program to reach its full potential.

Following conditioning in January, the first practice happened on February 19, Labno said.

While trying a sport that you’re not familiar with may seem intimidating, some of the student-athletes joined either due to interest or to create memories with their teammates.

Rylynn Graham, a freshman at Orestimba, said when the school’s pool was built, she wanted to join the swim team. Graham added that she’s excited to be one of the first student-athletes to be a part of the program’s revitalization, and hopes to inspire future generations to join the sport.

Beatrice Rebosio, an Orestimba senior and foreign exchange student from Italy, said her friend convinced her to join the team. Similar to Graham, Rebosio said she wants to encourage other students to join the program in the future.

In less than two weeks, the next chapter in the school’s athletics will begin.

 “I’m hoping that we can get this started and hopefully encourage other students, who might be interested in this, to try out,” Labno said. “Our goal with the Orestimba athletics program is we want kids to come in and try things out.”