Virginia's underrated dynasty

Perhaps the most underrated of Virginia’s 23 varsity sports is Mark Bernardino’s men’s and women’s swimming teams.
The Cavalier men are in College Park, Md., attempting to capture their 10th ACC championship in the last 11 years. You want a dynasty? Look no further.
The women just claimed their second straight title last weekend with a remarkable total of 800-plus points. It was their seventh conference crown overall.
The leader of this tribe of underappreciated athletes is Bernardino, who has quietly made a big splash in the world of collegiate swimming for 30 years.
By the numbers
His numbers are eye-popping: more than 430 combined wins, 18 conference championship trophies, 21 top-25 finishes in NCAA championships by the men, 18 of 25 for the women.
If this were any other sport, there would be a bronze bust of Bernardino somewhere on campus and probably a street named Bernardino Way.
Perhaps the most impressive statistic that bears out the success of his program is that at the most recent Olympic Trials, there were 35 athletes competing that were either past, present or future Wahoos.
“That’s a staggering number,” Bernardino admitted. “We were proud to realize we had that many quality athletes that had reached such a level of excellence. A bunch of them are still on this team, hoping to put one more ring on their finger, one more championship banner up on the board.”
Hard work sets the table
There’s really no secret to his program’s stature as Mei (pronounced May) Christensen, a junior from Reston, will readily profess. She won the 100 backstroke and the 200 backstroke individual titles at the ACC’s last weekend and she holds the ACC and Virginia record in both (51:79 in the 100; 1:52:22 in the 200).
Besides those two crowns, she was also part of four winning relay teams and also finished fourth in the 50 freestyle.
“The key to my success is just hard work,” Christensen said. “People ask me what am I doing differently from a year ago and I can’t pinpoint anything other than just working hard every day.”
That’s the deal when an athlete reports to Bernardino.
“The calling card of this program for a number of years is we have an extremely hard work ethic,” the coach said. “We look for athletes who embody that.”
While he gets his share of the highly-ranked top 50 to 100 swimmers in the country, he and his staff also recruit some athletes just a notch below that and coach ‘em up to Grade A standards.
And, oh yeah, there’s the team thing, too.
The better swimmers push and pull the others until they’re all the same, or close to it, which makes Virginia hard to beat in any meet: thus all those
championship trophies.
“If they come to UVa, we flat out tell them the team is No. 1 and you will do whatever it takes to help your team be good, regardless of the personal sacrifice involved,” Bernardino said. “Really it’s a team sport. It’s hard for a lot of people to understand that, but it truly is. Well sell it this way: There’s more at stake and more reason to be good when you’re being your best for 24 people instead of being your best for just one.”
Clearly, his team gets the message.
When the women’s meet ended in such celebration and confusion the other day, when the most valuable swimmer award was announced and Christensen was the winner, she wanted senior captain Megan Evo to accept the award.
After 30 years in the business, Bernardino had never seen that.
“I think that very much speaks to the kind of team we have,” the coach said. “They could have cared less about individual awards at that meet. They just cared about their teammates.”
He said that either one of the girls deserved the award. Evo also won two individual titles, swam on the relay squads and was a big part of the repeat.
“I can’t take credit for all that we did in winning the championship,” Christensen said. “The award was such a big honor, but I’ve been training with these girls for the last three years and I owe them so much, especially the captains.”
The women don’t compete again until the NCAAs in Texas in a few weeks, where Evo’s career will likely come to an end. Christensen, who has international aspirations, plans to compete in the world championship trials in July, then help inspire her UVa teammates for an unprecedented three-peat for the women’s title.
For the men, they still have work to do and Bernardino expects a tough meet with North Carolina and Florida State supplying the major competition, along with surging Virginia Tech.
“Tech is coming on with a fury,” Bernardino said. “Becoming part of the ACC has really helped their Olympic sports across the board.”
Still, when you’ve won nine of the last 10 titles, there’s no intention of allowing that to slide.
“They’re here to win and I think they harbor every intention of bringing home the title,” Bernardino said. “As a coach, going into an event with a group that has won championships gives me the sense of peace that they know how to perform when the pressure is on them most.”
He’s seen that before in squads. His best over all these years has been the men’s teams of 1999, 2000, 2001. The worst finish they had nationally over that span was No. 12. That 2000 squad boasted four Olympians, including medallist Ed Moses.
“Last year’s team and this year’s team (which has carryover) is closing in on that level of excellence,” Bernardino said. “That’s the kind of talent that we’ve had the last six or seven years.”
That’s what creates dynasties.
jratcliffe@dailyprogress.com