Nov. 1, 2001
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The UK swimming team.
The US National Guard.
English education major.
Martial arts.
What do all of these have in common? UK junior Eddie Clement. The 22-year old Essex, England native is the third in a line of four children of a British anti-terrorist agent and a special needs teacher, and one of the top returning swimmers for UK this season in both the butterfly (he owns the school record in the 200-yard butterfly) and individual medley. Oh, and one other thing – he was has an anniversary every May 12 to celebrate.
The alarm goes off at 5:40 a.m. and Clement’s day has begun. Swimming practice starts at 6 a.m. and runs until about 7:15 a.m. On Tuesday and Thursday, weight training follows the in-pool portion of practice. A much-needed nap comes in next before the textbooks rule his day from roughly 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. Then he heads back to the Lancaster Aquatic Center for another practice session until 5 p.m. His hectic days don’t end there as he is enrolled in a Monday night class and also studies martial arts with the UK Aikido Club. And don’t forget about time with April, his wife.
“Sometimes April asks me how I have time for all this,” said Clement. “It’s just fun.”Clement claims that marriage has, “calmed me down,” and helped rid himself of some of his bad habits. He met April, an eastern Kentucky native and also an English major, during his freshman year and they became engaged while visiting Paris the following summer. The pair wed this past summer.
Friends? He has a lot of them. And not just on the swimming team, though you wouldn’t be able to tell that from his wedding pictures in which, “half the team was there.” He has a great sense of camaraderie with football players, basketball players and your everyday student. Charles Dickens and Edgar Allen Poe are also some of his closest buddies as he enjoys catching up with them whenever he has free time, which usually comes right before he falls asleep.The rest of the swimming and diving team always gives him a hard time because he is always talking to complete strangers whenever they go on trips.
“I look at it in military terms, you have people from all different backgrounds and you have to serve as one unit, and serve each other the best you can,” said Clement. “I like to meet people and get different experiences. Life is too short to not meet people that are different than you.”
And for one weekend a month, Clement goes and “plays around in the field,” as a member of the National Guard, which will lead to basic training next summer. After graduation he hopes to gain his US citizenship and join the military as an officer. Clement’s duties with the National Guard are limited right now as his unit has already been stationed in Afghanistan, but without hesitation, Clement expresses how he feels about the current political situation.
“If someone is going to perform an atrocity like they did on the States, they have to expect that there will be some backlash,” he said. “You cannot just run around committing terrorist acts. It’s kind of a cowardly way to fight.”
After receiving his undergraduate degree, Clement hopes to pursue a Master’s in English education here at UK before enrolling in the military with the hopes of becoming a Navy SEAL. And when all that is said and done, he hopes to find himself at a high school, teaching English, coaching swimming and cheering on the football team to victory.
