Kenyon fifth-year senior Crile Hart (right) takes a photo with her mother, Jane Esselstyn. Hart, who won 14 individual and relay national championships during her career, called her mother her inspiration. Esselstyn was also a standout swimmer growing up, competing in the U.S. Olympic trials and competing two years at Michigan. (Photos courtesy of Crile Hart)

Kenyon swimmer Crile Hart credits mom as inspiration in and out of pool

Mother of Division III national champion reflects on her own swimming career, progress made possible by Title IX

By Corbin McGuire

5/6/2022 11:00:00 AM

Crile Hart is clear about the reason she became a swimmer — as clear as the waters she dominated while at Kenyon, where she won 14 Division III national championship trophies, as well as a team title in March.

In a letter Hart wrote about the sport’s impact on her life, she names the origin of that impact: her mother, Jane Esselstyn.

“I swim because my mom inspired me to,” Hart said in her letter, which she read at the 2022 Division III Swimming and Diving Championships in Indianapolis.

“Deep underwater is the most calming place to me, and I am so thankful that the sport of swimming has given me a window into that world.”

As she takes part in her final NCAA championship, @kenyonswimdive senior Crile Hart shares what the sport has given her.#d3swim pic.twitter.com/lBDqfE2qfl
— NCAA Division III (@NCAADIII) March 16, 2022

“She’s always just been my leader,” added Hart, who finished her collegiate career with 28 All-America honors, two Division III Swimmer of the Year recognitions and as a three-time finalist for the DIII Honda Athlete of the Year.

Hart followed her mother’s footsteps in several ways.

More than a decade after Title IX became law in 1972, Esselstyn was part of the first girls swimming team at Hawken Upper School in Gates Mill, Ohio, in 1980. As a freshman, she became the first Hawken girl to win a state championship under legendary head coach Jerry Holtrey. In 2014, Hart — a freshman at the time — was on the last of 24 Hawken girls teams to win a state championship under Holtrey. The mother-daughter duo each won individual titles in the backstroke.

“She taught me how to swim. She threw me in our childhood neighborhood pool, and we did like mommy-and-me lessons and all that stuff,” Hart said. “I really think that my love for water and why I wrote my letter to water was because of her. She’s definitely why I swim.”

Esselstyn’s experiences in swimming looked much different than those of any of her three children, who all became college swimmers — Zeb is a junior for the men’s team at Williams and Bainon is a sophomore for the women’s team. As a mother, she said, it’s been incredible to see the “amazing progress” made in fairness and equity for women’s sports.

Esselstyn said seeing her children experience college swimming has given her a rare perspective on the progress made. Specifically with Crile at Kenyon, Esselstyn said she was constantly in awe of how equal the men’s and women’s teams were treated. Truly, they were more like one team, she said.

“To see where Crile is now and where the women’s and men’s team at Kenyon are literally just equals … it’s been wonderful to see that happen for all of our kids,” Esselstyn said.

Esselstyn, who swam at the U.S. Olympic trials as a teenager and for two years at Michigan, where she also rowed, described her experiences in women’s athletics as “coming from nothing.” Growing up with three brothers, she saw the differences in resources and support firsthand. In high school and college, the men’s teams got preferential pool time and never trained with the women’s teams. That’s just one of many examples of how women in sports were treated differently.

Esselstyn described the progress she experienced in this space as always a step behind.

If the female teams got new swimsuits, the male teams got suits and goggles. During her time competing at Michigan, the male athletes on campus received leather-armed letterman’s jackets with a maize Block M on the chest. The women received a different version with a smaller, orange square M. In 2016, the school sent nearly 700 women who played a varsity sport from 1973-91 a new varsity letter jacket. It’s an example Esselstyn shared when speaking at Hawken while Hart was a student there.

"She’s all about women’s empowerment,” Hart said of her mother. “Not only did she inspire me in the pool, but also just as a woman. I think having her kind of be at the forefront of women in sports in college swimming but also just women in sports in general, she’s inspired me in that way, too.”

Not only did she inspire me in the pool, but also just as a woman. I think having her kind of be at the forefront of women in sports in college swimming but also just women in sports in general, she’s inspired me in that way, too.

Crile Hart, on her mother's impact

Esselstyn said her oldest daughter’s words were “humbling” but that the feeling is mutual. As a mother, she was impressed and proud of the way Crile handled the adversity the COVID-19 pandemic brought to her life as a student-athlete. Crile was on pace for some of the best times of her career when the pandemic hit. When she decided to take a gap year in 2021, there was never a guarantee her times and dominance in the pool would resume when she got back.

In a storybook ending, Crile finished her career by helping Kenyon win its first women’s title in the water since 2009. This included her winning three individual events, breaking multiple NCAA records and swimming in three relays that finished first. What stood out to her mother, however, was how Crile was equally invested in her teammates’ races and what they needed to do for the team to win.

“She’s more proud and more excited about what Kenyon did than what she necessarily did as an individual,” Esselstyn said. “I feel like Crile’s swimming experience, not just going for four years, but actually five years because of COVID, is such a beautiful extension of what my two years at Michigan was. She just got so much more out of it, every last drop until the end. She squeezed just all of the good stuff. That’s just rarefied air. I’m so, so lucky to have witnessed it.”

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