OBSERVER Photo by Braden Carmen Dunkirk High School swimmer Adam Fred signed his letter of intent to continue his academic and athletic career at Southern Connecticut State University on Wednesday afternoon. Fred is surrounded by his father, Robert, mother, Anna and sister, Julia.

The most accomplished swimmer in Dunkirk High School history received one more round of applause for his efforts before his time in high school comes to an end. This time, it came in a classroom full of his family and friends.

Adam Fred signed his letter of intent Wednesday afternoon at Dunkirk High School to continue his swimming career collegiately at Southern Connecticut State University.

Fred set nine school records during his time as a swimmer at Dunkirk. Six of the nine records are individual records, and Fred set new career bests in all nine events during his senior season. He set two individual records and two relay records as a junior, but broke his own records as a senior. He credits the support he got along the way for pushing him to continue improving, even after setting so many records.

“The support I was getting had a lot to do with it,” Fred said. “Being able to open up the newspaper and see my name, coming to school to hear it on the announcements, having my friends text me, it pushed me to just keep pushing forward, keep trying to break more records,” Fred said. “Hearing my name pop up over and over was a really good feeling.”

Fred singled out Senior Night as the top moment of his career to date. On Senior Night, Fred recorded his first-ever state-qualifying time, with a time of 21.89 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle.

Fred’s time earned him a trip to the New York State Public High School Athletic Association championship meet in Ithaca in early March. While at the state meet, he qualified for the final day of competition in the 100-yard backstroke, in which he finished 29th overall in the state. Fred called his experience at the state championships “a very fun, very enjoyable event.”

Dunkirk coach Allie Saye credited Fred as a “team leader” and joked that he could become a coach himself someday. “There’s nothing this kid can’t swim,” Saye said.

Individually, Fred holds the school records in the 200-yard freestyle (1:51.32), 200-yard individual medley (2:09.49), 50-yard freestyle (21.89), 100-yard butterfly (56.46), 100-yard freestyle (49.49), and 100-yard backstroke (54.26). Fred, Trenton Krenzer, Matt Dunn and David Barrett hold the 200-yard medley (1:44.61), 200-yard freestyle (1:34.26) and 400-yard freestyle (3:29.49) relay school records.

Fred began swimming on varsity at Dunkirk as a seventh-grader, when he won the Booster Award.

From eighth grade on throughout his entire career, he was selected as the team MVP.

Fred plans to study exercise science at Southern Connecticut State University. He developed an interest in the field after all the time he spent throughout his athletic career battling to overcome injuries. He noted elbow tendinitis from playing baseball, as well as knee pain and shoulder pain. However, this past season, Fred claimed he was fully healthy.

“I’ve had a lot of issues with my body as I went through my athletic career. I was at physical therapy a lot,” Fred said. “It’s always been an interest of mine to understand how the muscles work. It will be cool to go into a field such as that.”

In a career full of many high points, Fred refers to his sophomore year, which was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, as the low point. “During COVID, I couldn’t get into the pool. That was the only year that I didn’t drop times in my entire swimming career. That was the one year my times were inconsistent,” Fred said.

Throughout his whole career, Fred posted his performances online on swimcloud.com, even going back as far as when he was 7 years old. That platform helped him throughout his recruitment, as he narrowed his choices to a final three of Southern Connecticut State University, the University of Maine and Ithaca College. He said, “Southern Connecticut just felt right.”

Fred also credits STAR Swimming in Buffalo for helping with his development. “That allowed me to have the senior year that I did,” Fred said.

He dedicated himself to the sport full time by quitting baseball to join STAR Swimming to train throughout his senior year. Fred’s signing was the culmination of that work.

“Thank you to my coaches and everyone that supported me,” he said.