Ex-Tar Swigart gets fresh start

V. Swigart featureFormer Newport Harbor standout has returned to court for Willamette University after sitting out due to ACL surgery.This season is a new beginning in more than one way for Victoria Swigart.

The Newport Harbor High grad is finally making her debut at the collegiate level, playing basketball at Willamette University, an NCAA Division III school in Oregon. But that’s just one of many new things for the redshirt freshman.

Swigart is coming back from surgery on her left anterior cruciate ligament, an injury that dates back to her senior season at Newport Harbor in 2003-04. And she’s doing it with a different coach than the one who recruited her. And the results, she says, have been all she could have hoped for.

A Dream Team member her senior year, Swigart helped lead the Sailors to the CIF Southern Section Division II-AA playoffs and their first postseason victory since 1997. She played in that playoff win despite having torn the ACL just four games earlier.

The 5-foot-8 forward didn’t play basketball her first year at Willamette, after undergoing surgery on the knee last January.

“I did everything with them and kept stats,” Swigart said. “Being an athlete all my life, having to sit out for a whole year is one of the hardest things to do.”

Her basketball world got another jolt when Tom Steers, who recruited her to Willamette, resigned last April and was replaced by former Portland State assistant Bruce Henderson.

Rather than a disappointment, the move came as a relief for Swigart and her teammates.

“It was an easy transition because the situation last year was terrible,” Swigart said. “It was just a bad situation. I was almost glad I wasn’t part of it. Everyone was real excited to have a new coach.

“For me, I started on ground zero along with everyone else. I think it was a good transition.”

Henderson must have seen something good in Swigart because she has been a regular contributor for the Bearcats, averaging nearly 20 minutes a game The former first-team All-Sea View League performer has started six of the Bearcats’ first 14 games, averaging 3.2 points and 2.9 rebounds.

She has even gotten the chance to play in front of family and friends when Willamette played in the Tiger Poet Classic last month at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

Regardless of the numbers, however, Swigart said she is happy with her choice of school. Having spent four years at Newport Harbor -- which has an enrollment of nearly 2,500 students -- the small college life of Willamette was a godsend.

“There’s only 1,800 undergrads and so that’s one thing I like,” Swigart said. “You see people you recognize all the time. One thing I’ve noticed, on the whole, people are a lot more friendly around campus. Even if you don’t know them, you’ll still get a smile from them.”

Like many athletes who have suffered knee injuries, Swigart has used her experience to influence her career choice, picking exercise science as her major at Willamette.