By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – Tara Enneking has always loved the water. When she was a toddler, she would jump into anything that holds more than a few gallons of liquid, be it a bathtub, a pool or the Atlantic Ocean.
"I'm told I loved the water a bit too much," she said.
That's an understatement. Her parents were constantly rescuing her after she jumped into the family pool.
The final straw came one afternoon when her mother, Amy Enneking, looked outside at the pool and saw what looked like her daughter floating in the water face down.
She ran downstairs and jumped into the pool and to her relief, it wasn't Tara. It was a life-sized Barbie Doll that belonged to Tara's sister, Megan.
It might sound humorous now, but it wasn't funny to Amy, who immediately called her husband, Jeff, and told him "We're getting Tara into swimming lessons."
And Tara hasn't stopped swimming since.
Tara is a senior for the Old Dominion University swim team, which hosts Davidson Saturday at noon in the Scrap Chandler Pool located in the ODU Student Recreation Center.
She looks back at that incident, which she was too young to remember, as something that changed her life.
"It kick-started my love for swimming," she said. "I started swim lessons, then joined a team and now, look where I am today."
Tara is one of the top swimmers for ODU – she placed in two events last season in the Conference USA meet and won a league championship two years ago – but is even a bigger star in the classroom.
A Dean's List student, she is a civil engineering major who was a recipient this year of the coveted Edger A. Kovner endowed scholarship, reserved for the University's very best engineering students.
For the Enneking family, engineering and swimming have been family affairs.
"I come from a family of athletes," she said. "We're all over six feet tall.
"So, it was kind of like, not are you going to play a sport but what sport are you going to end up playing."
Her father, Jeff, was a rower at Ohio State. Her sister, Amy, was a four-sport star in high school who played water polo at James Madison. Megan also played volleyball and swam in high school
Tara played lacrosse for a while and was so good she considered playing lacrosse full time. But in the end, she said her love of swimming prevailed.
Her father is a nuclear engineer for Framatome, a firm based in Lynchburg. The family home is in Forest, Virginia, just west of Lynchburg. And clearly, math and science genes run in the family – she also has an uncle who's an engineer.
Tara Enneking and father Jeff when she was a child
Given that ODU and Virginia Tech arguably have the two best engineering schools in Virginia, she narrowed her many college choices down to those two as a senior. A star swimmer at Jefferson Forest High School and with the Lynchburg YMCA program, she also liked that both had good swim teams.
In part because Virginia Tech is so much closer to home, she nearly enrolled in Blacksburg.
"I was like picking out my roommate at Virginia Tech at one point," she said. "The coach offered me a spot on the team."
But then she visited ODU.
"I just absolutely fell in love with the campus," she said. "And the team atmosphere was unlike anything I'd ever seen. The camaraderie between the (men's and women's swim) teams here was unbelievable.
"ODU is not quite as big as Tech, and to me, that was a good thing. It seemed like there was more communication between teams. It felt more like a family.
"And then when I saw there were other engineering students on the team, I was like, OK, 'I can do this here.' "
She said whenever she returns home, she tells her friends about ODU.
"I tell them that this is an amazing school," she said. "I tell them that ODU is a hidden gem. Not a lot of people from my side of the state come here.
"A lot of people don't know, but when ODU was established (as the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary and VPI), it was part established as an engineering school. The engineering program here is really good."
Madeline Wilson and Tara Enneking are both civil engineering majors
Majoring in a subject like engineering while competing as an athlete can be difficult. At times, especially last season when she was a junior, classes she had to take conflicted with practice times.
"I would have to make up practices on my own," she said. "I would be swimming in an empty pool by myself. It was hard, but I just maintained a positive attitude, knowing that it was all temporary.
"My parents always told me anything worth doing is hard because not everyone's doing it. And that's something I always keep in the back of my mind."
Kristen Eden, director of success for ODU's undergraduate engineering program, says Tara is one of ODU's best and most engaging engineering students. Eden worked with Tara her first three seasons at ODU as director of student-athlete academic services.
"She is so outgoing and has never met a stranger," Eden said. "She makes everyone feel welcome.
"Her work ethic is so good. She's very organized. She's methodical at everything she does. She makes sure she's achieving her goals, but at the same time, wants everyone to feel welcome."
And she does a ton of volunteer work away from the classroom and pool. She does so much that she has been honored with the ODU Sporit Award.
Fourth year swim coach Jessica Livsey said Tara "knows what her goals are in life, and she's driven by them.
"The other day we had a workout and I mean it was hard. I knew it was hard when I was putting them through it.
"Tara didn't let if faze her. She was so positive and tried to motivate her teammates to keep working."
Tara says she is fortunate in that teammate Madeline Willson, a senior from Clinton Township, Michigan, is also majoring in civil engineering and shares the same minor – environmental engineering.
"We take a lot of classes together, and that makes it easier," Tara said. "And we're close friends."
Tara actually has a ton of friends beyond Willson. Livsey says she has managed to stay close to all of her 57 men's and women's teammates.
"She gets along with everyone," Livsey said. "She's been able to find a connection with every single person on the team, regardless of their background.
"She literally has a connection with everyone on the team and that so rarely happens."
Although she's a senior, Tara could take advantage of a fifth season and return next year. Shortly after the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 school year, the NCAA gave every college athlete a do-over. Everyone was awarded a fifth year of eligibility.
But Tara is anxious to get into the working world of engineering and plans to graduate in the spring and find a job.
As a civil engineer, she can work on structural engineering projects, such as building bridges, roads and buildings. But she is intrigued with environmental engineering, which could include working on storm drainage systems or monitoring water quality.
Tara already has a job offer in Virginia Beach and while her options remain open, she says she plans to live in the Norfolk area.
"I loved growing up in Forest," she said. "It's beautiful.
"But sometimes you want something different from where you grew up. I love this area. I've made so many friends here."
With her grades and swimming resume, she could have entered the transfer portal and perhaps moved up to a more prestigious swim program with a bigger and better swim facility.
"I love our pool," she said. "We all it the Scrap. But are bigger and better pools, but ours has character.
"If I swam at an ACC school, I would have been a team player, but I wouldn't have played a vital role on the team like I do here. And to me, it's important to be able to be a team leader. I feel like I'm making a big, big impact, a big mark on this team.
"No, it never crossed my mind. I love it here too much. I love my teammates too much.
"From the time I first stepped on campus, I knew this was where I was going to school. And I never regretted that decision for a minute."
She said she often thinks of that day so many years ago when her mother hauled a Barbie doll out of a pool.
"It's kind of weird," she said. "But if it weren't for that doll, I probably wouldn't be sitting here today. I may not have ever gotten into swimming or gone to ODU.
"It changed my whole life."
And for that, ODU's swimmers and coaches are grateful.
Minium: How A Barbie Doll Floating in a Pool Changed Life of ODU Swimmer Tara Enneking
