News

After soccer fields and Ecusta Trail, aquatics advocates say, ‘Got next’

By Bill Moss, Published: February 27, 2026

Brady Merrill, a high school senior, stepped up to the lectern and told Henderson County commissioners about his day.

“As a West Henderson swimmer,” he said, “I woke up today at about 4:45 in the morning to drive to the YMCA to hop in the lane with about 10 other high school swimmers who also woke up that early to practice for our state meet.”

When Brady says hopped in a lane, he means one lane.

“We routinely practice with 10-plus swimmers in a single lane,” West Henderson Athletic Director Justin Heatherly told commissioners. “That’s not ideal, but it speaks to grit, pride and a buy-in.”

Wearing a bow tie, sporting a wavy mop of reddish-brown hair and exhibiting the poise and confidence of a 31-year-old candidate for Congress, young Mr. Merrill was the perfect witness to underscore the point.

“I can say firsthand that swimming has produced an academic value in my life, as well as character — as many people on our team are within the top 15 percent of their class, top 10 percent or even valedictorians,” he said. “Swimming builds character unlike any other sport, and unlike contact sports, is a sport that can be played for life.”

He omitted the part about how he’s president of the Falcon student body, recently won the conference championship in the 100-yard backstroke and, oh, yeah, has been admitted into college.

“Brady’s not really a bragger,” Heatherly revealed later in the meeting, “but the gentleman that’s captain of our swim team got into Harvard this year.”

The pool campaign opens

The appeals by Heatherly and Merrill came during the public comment period at the Feb. 4 meeting of the Board of Commissioners, which years from now may go down as the unofficial kickoff of a successful effort to build a major new indoor aquatics center in the greater Hendersonville area.

Any commitments are some distance away, to be sure, but action was a long ways off, too, when bicyclists and fitness enthusiasts began advocating years ago for the Ecusta Trail, which opened last July, and when youth soccer families begged, in the early aughts, for something better than the cow-pasture fields at Jackson Park, which in October will be placed by perhaps the finest youth sports complex in Western North Carolina.

You gotta start somewhere, and the indoor pool campaign started publicly this month.

Lifetime swimmer Steve Bradshaw and Hendersonville High School swim coach Sarah Alholm made a more formal presentation later in the Feb. 4 meeting. An aquatics center, they said, would accommodate youth water safety and swim lessons, adult lap swimming, kayak training, deep-water rescue and scuba training, physical therapy and senior aquatics exercise — and, like the new Berkeley Park sportsplex and the Ecusta Trail, could be a rec-tourism booster.

A needs assessment commissioned by the Henderson County Parks and Recreation Department in 2019 identified a swimming facility as a top five need. Other top needs — including greenways, bike trails, soccer fields, tennis courts — have largely been met.

“Since that 2019 assessment, we’ve looked at about a 3 percent growth, so we’re around 121,000 people in Henderson County, and there’s a lot of needs that our community has around aquatics,” Alholm said. “It would be great if we could host some swim meets here and get some of those revenues into our schools and our community, and also to be able to do some training for our first responders — not to overlook the capabilities that we could have with physical therapy or just having a place where our families can go and have fun.”

Smaller county, big aquatics program

The embryonic discussion of a large indoor facility comes as the city of Hendersonville has taken steps to rebuild Patton pool, outdoors as it was before Helene wrecked it. The city council looked at options for an indoor facility that ranged as high as $60 million but could not see paying that much.

A lifelong swimmer, varsity swimmer at N.C. State University and West Henderson High swim coach, Bradshaw said a new city facility won’t accommodate regional swim meets.

“What was Patton pool lacking? Of course, it was outdoors, so it was good for a little less than three months,” he said. “It was over 50 years old. It’s a concrete pool. They don’t make them out of concrete anymore, not the good pools. They’re metal with epoxy coatings.”

“If we were to have a 50-meter pool with an adjacent 25-yard (warmup) pool, we could host these large meets and bring in dollars to our community,” he added.

Both Alholm and Heatherly, the Falcon athletic director, described community aquatic centers that serve two smaller mountain counties — Jackson and Haywood.

Haywood County, which has a population of around 63,000 people, has a two-pool setup with a 25-yard pool that accommodates regional competitions, prep practice and meets and adult lap swim, Alholm said.

Heatherly added: “I recently attended a meet at Jackson County’s new aquatic center and it was eye opening. It wasn’t just a pool, it was community hub serving youth programs, PE classes, high school teams and the public. That’s what we can build here.”

Is BRCC a potential site?

In the Lightning’s candidate survey in the Voter Guide last week, three candidates for county commission seats, including incumbent Rebecca McCall, expressed support for a thorough feasibility study and a hunt for grant money.

At the board of commissioners meeting three weeks ago, Chair Bill Lapsley asked Blue Ridge Community College President Laura Leatherwood whether BRCC has eight acres it could spare for an aquatics center.

Maybe, she seemed to suggest. The college currently is asking the state Legislature for a $40 million appropriation for a fire and rescue training facility.

“And in that building, we requested a water component, especially coming out of the hurricane,” Leatherwood said. “We know that these fire and rescue teams need to be training in the water. Without the funding, we’re not able to build it. But it is on our master plan, and it is one of our top priorities to serve our public safety community.”

County Rescue Squad Chief Tim McFalls also endorsed an indoor pool for training purposes.

“To do our scuba diving training, we have to start in a pool in a controlled environment to teach new people new skills,” he said. “And annually, we have to do skills checks, swim tests, skills underwater (exercises) to make sure that people are staying up and proficient.” The training currently takes place at a pool at Isothermal Community College in Rutherford County.

The aquatic center appeal commissioners heard this month is on a parallel track with a campaign by Support Our Swimmers, which formed to advocate for a major facility. Bill Ramsey, an SOS leader, promised  commissioners there’s more information to come.

“I’m 83 years old, so I won’t be swimming in this pool when it’s finally built,” he said. “But we’ve been working as an SOS team for two years now, and we have not shared with you all the detail that we’ve gotten into. So the next time we’re given the opportunity to see you, you’re going to hear a lot of details. Be prepared, because we’ll bring you a boatload of information.”

The boat’s still at the dock now. But commissioners — maybe the YMCA, the Hendersonville City Council, one or more of our hospitals, corporate donors — are close to at least dipping their toes in the water. The bleary eyed teenagers plunging into the YMCA lanes would appreciate it.

“I’ve been an athletic director for over five years, and when students are willing to show up at 5:30 in the morning, it’s because they want to be part of something special,” West’s Heatherly said. “If you know kids, they don’t like to show up that early. We value tradition, we work hard and we make do, but at some point, making do isn’t good enough, and an indoor pool is not a luxury. It’s an investment in safety, health, opportunity and community pride.”