Charlie Scheinfeld is all smiles as he gets ready to receive his first-place medal. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOEL LERNER
It never gets old, the joke Samantha Scheinfeld likes to tell people about why her twin brother, Charlie, is two minutes older than she is. Samantha told it again last weekend. It made her laugh again. It made others who had heard it before laugh again.
The joke has legs. The joke is about a leg.
One of Samantha’s legs.
“I kicked him out,” a smiling Samantha said in the lobby area of the natatorium at Evanston Township High School on Feb. 27. “That’s why he’s older.”
New Trier sophomore and Glencoe resident Charlie Scheinfeld, no joke, had captured the state title in the 100-yard breaststroke at the state swimming and diving meet about 45 minutes earlier. Another kind of kick — a swift finishing kick, after the Trevian had trailed the eventual runner-up, St. Charles North freshman William Myhre, at the penultimate wall of the race — came in quite handy. The 6-foot, 175-pound Scheinfeld, long-armed and lean, hit the final wall in 55.9, half an eyelash, maybe smaller, ahead of Myhre (55.95).
Scheinfeld finished 11th (59.19) in the same race at the state meet last winter.
“I shaved a ‘1’ [off the 11] today,” Scheinfeld, clever Trev, said.
What he also cut last weekend: his personal-best time in the 100 breaststroke. Scheinfeld clocked a blistering 55.86 in a state preliminary heat on Feb. 26, matching the school-record set by multiple state champion Jae Park, a 2014 graduate. Park sped to first place in the 100 breaststroke and in the 200 IM and swam on a couple of victorious relays at the 2013 state meet.
“I don’t know if we, as a team, could have had a better Friday [day of state preliminaries] than we had,” Trevians senior and Bucknell University-bound Willie Kinsella, sixth in the 200 free (1:42.74) at state last weekend, said. “Everybody swam crazy-best times. Everybody. And then, when Charlie won the 100 breaststroke, everybody on our team went insane.”
Scheinfeld had entered the state meet as the No. 2 seed in the 100 breaststroke, thanks to his 57.21 at the Niles North Sectional on Feb. 20. Up in the stands, on both days at state, his twin sister sat and stood and cheered. Charlie saw her and heard her. Samantha had a perfect attendance record at New Trier — until Feb. 26. Duty called on Feb. 26. She had to pay a visit to ETHS’s natatorium. Wanted to pay a visit.
“That she was here, to watch me … that meant a lot to me,” the state champ said.
New Trier swim coach Josh Runkle watched the first 25 yards of the championship heat of the 100 breaststroke on Feb. 27. He could not watch the final 75 yards of the same race.
“I did look up at the scoreboard, late in the race,” Runkle admitted. “I saw that Charlie was two tenths of a second behind. I thought, ‘OK, he’s good.’ ”
Scheinfeld caught up to Myhre near the end of the final 25 yards, surged and fully extended his arms. A wall halted him. Victory. Barely. The twin looked up at the scoreboard, as Runkle tumbled out of his bleacher seat on deck and walked briskly to congratulate the victor. A smiling and proud Runkle fun-slapped Scheinfeld’s hairless head.
“Such an awesome competitor,” Trevians assistant coach Mac Guy said. “Charlie is kind of new at this, competing at this high of a level. It was cool, fun to watch him. If he’s near anybody after 50 yards in a race, he’s thinking, ‘I can take this.’ He has reached that point as a swimmer, as a competitor. He’s got that kind of confidence now.”
Scheinfeld also swam on a pair of top nine relays last week, helping the 200 medley unit finish fifth (1:34.47) and the 200 free crew place ninth (1:26.45). He missed a spot in the 100 free consolation finals by three spots and seven hundredths of a second (15th place, 46.83). He learned a ton about himself last weekend.
“If I want something, I go get it, make it happen,” Scheinfeld said.
When he desires food, he grabs it, inhales it. Charlie Scheinfeld consumes about 5,000 calories per day, nothing but healthy fare, Samantha reported after the state meet last weekend. Her slightly older brother likes bananas and apples and dried fruit.
“He hasn’t had a dessert in two weeks, I think,” Samantha added.
There is a fun-loving side to Charlie Scheinfeld in between all of those bites. Look for the excitable kid in him to stick around for a while, maybe forever. Runkle called him a “giant, little kid, fun to be around.” Around his twin sister, at home, he’s “really mellow, chill,” his twin sister shared. Teammates looked for Charlie Scheinfeld this winter when they needed to escape the clutches of a rigorous, monotonous practice. Hang out with Scheinfeld for a few minutes, laugh a little. Relief. Rinse (more laps), repeat.
“Charlie,” Kinsella said, “is the best guy to talk to if you’re nervous about something or worried about something, because you know he’ll say something good, something witty.”
Notable: New Trier’s swimming and diving team took fifth (82 points) at state for the second year in a row. Trevians sophomore Ryan Gridley and seniors Danny Brooks and Riley Mech joined sophomore Charlie Scheinfeld to take fifth in the 200 medley relay (1:34.47). Brooks, senior Willie Kinsella and sophomores Patrick Gridley and Ryan Gridley combined for a fifth-place time of 3:07.65 in the 400 free relay. Brooks, Kinsella, Scheinfeld and Mech collaborated for a ninth-place showing in the 200 free relay (1:26.45). The Trevians’ other top-12 swims at state: Patrick Gridley (eighth, 100 backstroke, 51.47); Ryan Gridley (11th, 100 backstroke, 52.2; 12th, 200 IM, 1:57.73); and junior Patrick Drake (12th, 200 free, 1:57.73). … NT senior Charlie Gentzkow enjoyed another medal-heavy state meet, bowing for two more gold medals and a pair of silvers in races for athletes with disabilities last weekend. Gentzkow took first in the 200 free (2:11.92) and first in the 100 free (58.63), dropping a combined 15 seconds off his seed times. He finished runner-up in the 50 free (26.85) and in the 100 breaststroke (1:26.06) races.
Charlie Scheinfeld of the Trevians powers to a first-place finish in the 100 breaststroke at state. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOEL LERNER