It's not really that unusual to have student-athletes play more than one sport in high school. It is slightly unusual for a football player to choose swimming as his second sport.

The two sports don't seem to have much in common, so they generally don't share many athletes. One exception is Connor DeJohn, who plays on the offensive and defensive lines for Emmaus' football team and then heads for the pool once the football season ends.

DeJohn, a sophomore, is showing a marked improvement in his times in the pool this season over what he was able to do as a freshman.

At the Wilson Relays this past weekend, DeJohn was part of a relay team made up of ninth and tenth graders that won the 200-yard freestyle relay. In the event, DeJohn was teamed with Ricky Thomas, Ethan Carr and Patrick McAllister to record the win at a meet that features strong competition. Overall, Emmaus finished fourth out of 14 teams, with the boys finishing sixth and the girls finishing fourth overall.

While he doesn't believe that the two sports share a whole lot, DeJohn sees how some of what he's done to prepare himself for football is paying off during the winter months in the pool.

"I think they're actually really different," DeJohn said of the training that goes into the two sports. "I think the lifting in football has helped me a lot, because it's helped me build my strength and then the conditioning that we did in football helped me keep my aerobic ability up during the football season, which helped me transition into the swimming season."

Even though he wasn't as strong of a swimmer last season as he's showing himself to be this season, DeJohn caught the eye of coach Tim O'Connor as a freshman and has been picking up on what he needs to do to have success in swimming.

The veteran swimming coach knows how to get the most out of his swimmers and he's had a willing participant in DeJohn, who has worked hard to follow the plan set out by O'Connor.

"Connor's doing a great job," said O'Connor. "I just had a conversation with him the other day and I said 'are you surprising yourself, because I'm really pleased with your progress from year one to year two?' and he is a little surprised. I think he's really getting it.

"It's one of those things where when you're as talented as he is, he's a good athlete in football and swimming, and when you add the mental component to any athlete, they're always going to be better. He's really starting to understand why we do some of the things that we do and the way we do it and why we need to be strict with how he does some things, because it's his improvement that's at stake."

While many of today's athletes aren't quick to buy into their coaches training regimen, DeJohn is trusting in O'Connor and the other coaches to give him the tools he needs to have individual success, which will help the team overall.

The willingness to not question even the smallest of things has helped DeJohn to start leaving his mark on the Emmaus swimming program and O'Connor is pleased with both the approach and the results.

"When I first started out and was teaching them as age-groupers and had them all the way through high school, they had already invested in me," said O'Connor. "Now that I'm just involved at this level, there are some kids who have a tough time buying in, and I'm sure, some parents, too. And that's the number one hurdle that I think could get in the way of a kid's success, is just the trust factor.

"If you're wasting your mind energy every day at practice wondering if what me and the other coaches are doing is right, then you're losing more out of practice than if you're just invested in what we're doing."

The fact that he's having success early in his swimming career has helped DeJohn to see how just working the program that the coaches have for him is going to lead to more and more success.

"He always has a better idea of what we need to do than we do and you've just got to trust his judgment," said DeJohn. "He knows what he's doing, so you've just got to go with what he says."

Both the boys and girls swim teams are a perfect 6-0 on the season.