It has been a long time since Powell High School has sent a boys swimmer to the next level, and when Gabe Rose signed his Letter of Intent last month to attend Carleton College in Minnesota, he became the first Panther boys swimmer since Jeremy Burns in 1999 to sign at the next level.

“Being in such a small town and being the first person to do that in a long time. It makes me feel that I’ve done something really special and that I’ve worked hard for this. I hope it will encourage people to swim,” Rose said. “The swim club has gone through its ups and downs with number of swimmers and I really hope to see that grow.”

Carleton is a college located in Northfield, Minnesota, just south of the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area.

Rose said that he first attended the area for a vacation when not initially looking at colleges, but revisited the campus when he returned to look at St. Olaf College and fell in love with Carleton.

“I liked it (St. Olaf), but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for,” Rose said. “We had a tour at Carleton that afternoon and I instantly fell in love. My main goal for college is computer science and they have an excellent computer science program.”

Heading to the next level, Rose was uncertain about competing in swimming, but having competed since third grade he realized the importance of swimming in his life.

“It’s always been kind of a second family, or a place that I can go to at the end of the day to relax and kind of recharge,” Rose said. “It’s a place you can push yourself to a limit you normally couldn’t do.”

He said he was able to get in contact with the coaches, who have a similar coaching style to Powell’s Jerry Rodriguez, while the team is similar to that of Powell’s.

“It seems like the team is just like the team I have now, very close, tight knit and like a family,” he said.

Throughout the years at PHS, Rose has been one of the top Panther competitors, having consistently qualified for events at the state meet all four years.

Over the past two years in particular, Rose has been able to make it to one of the sectional finals at the state meet, including being a ‘B’ sectional finalist in both the 200 IM and the 100 fly each year while being a part of two Panther relays.

He finished ninth in the 100 fly and 11th in the 200 IM this past season, with Rose wanting specialize more in college.

“My main goal is butterfly, I have always been really good at butterfly and IM,” Rose said. “I am not sure if I will do long course or short course. I have swam longer races like the 200 fly and 400 IM before, and while I am somewhat good at them, they are really tiring. I’m not sure that is what I am built for.”

He said that his family was the original inspiration for getting into swimming, and continued to encourage him whenever he wanted to quit.

“They were there to be like ‘keep going, let’s focus on this.’ They’ve kept me in it — if it wasn’t for them I would have quit around middle school time,” Rose said.

He said that both coaches Stephanie Warren and Rodriguez have been able to keep him motivated throughout the course of his high school career.

Academically, Rose said he is specifically interested in graphics programming, which is where you take digital data and use math to bring certain scenes to life in different areas such as video games, CAD models or a movie scene.

“You work a little bit with artists, a little bit with the actual programming but it’s a lot of complicated math and stuff like that,” Rose said. “It’s something you have to do a lot of self-study with. While you do need all the computer science stuff in college, a lot of them don’t have the courses for that so you need to teach yourself outside of class how to do it.” 

Carleton is an NCAA Division III college that competes in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, with Rose knowing that it will be a big step at the next level.

“I’m really excited. It’s a big step and I look forward to what challenges it brings. I like to push myself, I’m a hard worker so I think I have a good shot at finding success,” Rose said.