- Swimming into season, Highland High School makes a splash as construction for the new aquatics center is closer to completion.
- Head coach Mat Prasser shares how his personal experience on the school’s swim team encourages students to just keep swimming.
- The East Side Aquatic Center is expected to be complete by the end of April.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Mat Prasser started competitively swimming when he was a freshman at Highland High.
“This was the sport that helped me get into college and… basically paved the way for all of the rest of my life, so it’s been really important for me,” said Prasser.
Prasser says he won valley championships and broke school records throughout his high school career.
“My senior year, after I had won Valley, I went into the locker room and I remember I was crying and my teammates came and got me and they’re like, ‘hey, Mat, you gotta go get your medal and go stand on the podium,’” said Prasser. “I remember that I was crying because I didn’t want it to be over.”
While he’s no longer a student, Prasser’s days with the school’s swim team are far from over.
Now, he is an English teacher, alumnus, and head coach for the Highland swim team– giving back to the school that kept him afloat.
“And now as a coach, it isn’t over, but it’s kind of come back in a more special and meaningful way than even when I was doing it myself,” said Prasser.
Especially as his family follows in his footsteps.
“I have my nephew who’s the team captain,” said Prasser. “He’s a senior, and then I have my niece who’s a freshman, and she’s up and coming and looking like she’s gonna be really good as well.”
While Prasser is building a legacy at Highland, the school is building a pool– the East Side Aquatic Center. It will be the second pool in the Kern High School District, with the other located next to Independence High School.
Currently, students like senior and swim team captain Jocelyn Cortez have to travel throughout Bakersfield– just to practice.
“We practiced at B.C. and that’s for swimming. And then for diving, we practice at McMurtrey downtown and then the other half of practice goes to Kern Aquatic Center, which is on the other side of the town,” said Cortez.
The East Side Aquatic Center will feature a 50 meter by 25 yard competition pool, two one-meter diving boards, water polo fields, a state-of-the-art timing system and full-color video display, lighting for nighttime events, a large classroom for instruction and team meetings, stadium seating for 356 spectators, and a large area with synthetic turf for team encampments.
But this aquatic center will open up opportunities not just for Highland High, but all eastside schools that have swim programs– as well as offering swim lessons and scheduled civic use.
“This is something the… east side of Bakersfield really needs,” said Prasser. “We sometimes have people that don’t know how to swim, a lot of people in our area that don’t know how to swim. So that was one of the reasons that this was built, was to be a community pool, not just for the high school but for everybody.”
For Huntington Sierra, another senior at Highland High School, he feels the swim team has been a fundamental part of his high school experience.
“I had no swimming experience prior to swimming at Highland,” said Huntington Sierra. “And I’ve had a great coach and a lot of great swimmers that have taught me how to swim better. So I’ve grown a lot.”
And while Huntington is bummed he won’t be able to use it during his high school career, he is excited to see the doors that open for future generations of swimmers– including his sister, who is a freshman.
“I’m really excited just to see how much I grow from the beginning to the end and how much growth I can see in myself,” said Kendall Sierra, a freshman at Highland High School.
The Kern High School District says this project has been made possible by the generosity of the 661 Foundation and Measure E.
Practices for the 2025 swim season starts on Monday, February third.
The East Side Aquatic Center is expected to be complete by the end of April.
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