John Swallen '87 lettered in two sports at Ripon College. A two-time First Team All-Conference selection and three-year letterman as a Goalkeeper on the soccer field, Swallen also lettered during all four years for the Redmen football team as an All-Conference kicker. He was inducted into Ripon's Athletics Hall of Fame in 2003.
"I loved playing two varsity sports at the same time," Swallen said. "I would often play a soccer game on Saturday morning and finish the game just in time to drive over to Ingalls Field, throw on my pads, and go out to do the opening kickoff of our football game."
During his final three seasons on the gridiron, Swallen missed just one extra point, going 30-for-31 on PATs, while also kicking eight field goals. Although he had success in both sports at Ripon, Swallen was best known for his outstanding play on the pitch, where he was a two-time All-State recipient, while serving as Men's Soccer's team captain during his senior season.
"My first contact with John and what happened next tells a lot about who he is as a person," former Ripon Head Men's Soccer Coach
David Scott said. "After losing a game 1-0 at Carleton with a conference tournament berth on the line, a tall, slim, soft-spoken high school student came up to me, introduced himself and told me he would be my team's Goalkeeper the following year. That kid was John, who I knew nothing about at the time. I then asked him how he compared to our current Goalkeeper, who happened to be an All-Conference-caliber player."
"I'm a lot better than he is," Swallen calmly announced.
"Given the game my Goalkeeper had just played, it didn't seem all that likely and the following August I got word from Admissions that John had decided to play soccer at a Division-I school in Florida," Scott recalled. "It then occurred to me that maybe he'd known what he was talking about, but I still had my talented Goalkeeper, who was entering his junior season, as well as his backup who was also a junior and was nearly as good."
Swallen didn't overly enjoy his experience in Florida, so he transferred to Ripon after just one year in the sunshine state.
"I was looking forward to evaluating him in action the following Fall, but learned that he had decided to play football instead. It turned out that John simply didn't want to take the opportunity to play away for my two Goalkeepers who were now seniors on the team, and he was absolutely confident that he would've done just that," Scott said. "I finally got him on the team the following year, and it was clear from the first moment I saw him in goal that his talent was at a different level."
The admiration was mutual, as Coach Scott made Swallen's Ripon College experience even more enjoyable than it normally would have been.
"Dave Scott was a major influence on me during my time at Ripon because he had an infectious love for the game of soccer that rubbed off on me and he got the most out of his players," Swallen said. "I have such great respect for Dave that I chose him to introduce me at my (Ripon College Athletics) Hall of Fame induction ceremony."
Ripon's isn't the only Hall of Fame in which Swallen is inducted. Three years after his graduation, Swallen joined the Minnesota Thunder of the United Soccer League - First Division, where he spent the next 12 years. He was inducted into the Minnesota Thunder Hall of Fame at the conclusion of his professional career, which saw him earn USL-First Division Most Valuable Player honors in 1999.
"In my last 33 years of coaching, I have been fortunate enough to coach other Goalkeepers who have been Division-I caliber athletes and have made it to the pros, but nobody quite like John, either as a player or as a person," Scott said. "He was one of the nicest student-athletes I have ever dealt with and I only wish that I had coached him later in my life because I was still in the early stages of developing as a coach at that time. If I had coached him now, I could do much more for him, but to be honest, he couldn't have done much better than he did, both at Ripon and in his professional career that followed."
Swallen also thoroughly enjoyed his time spent as a student-athlete at Ripon College.
"I had a wonderful experience during my time at Ripon and have many fond memories of playing both football and soccer," Swallen said. "Given the chance to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a single thing."
Swallen currently resides in Arden Hills, Minn., where he is a Lower School Physical Education teacher at his alma mater, Breck School. A member of Breck's Athletics Hall of Fame, Swallen remains involved in soccer as a youth coach. He and his wife Tami have six children.
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