Swimmers Mourn Drowned Teammate

The Trabuco Hills High School swimming team dedicated their last event of the season Thursday to Brian Graper, their teammate who drowned the day before in an apparent accident at the school pool.

“No medals, no personal records, this time we’re doing it all for Brian,” coach Andy Garcia said.

The team showed up by the carload in Long Beach for the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section Championships carting signs that read, “We Love You, Brian.”

The Trabuco Hills senior was found dead at the end of the campus swimming pool after swimming practice Wednesday. The coroner’s office performed an autopsy Thursday but declared the results inconclusive. Law enforcement officials said earlier that it appeared to be an accidental drowning.

For Graper, an 18-year-old aspiring high school history teacher, going all out was a way of life. Classmates noted that spirit Thursday by crowding around Graper’s faded red Ford Mustang in the school parking lot, giving hugs and kisses to his car.

On the day of the drowning accident, Graper had a treat for his English class. The assignment was to choose a song and compare it to a poem. He matched the Thomas Gray poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” with the music of AC-DC.

Answering the wondering looks of his classmates after the crashing music eventually subsided, he sheepishly admitted the song had nothing to do with the poem: “I just wanted to play one of my favorite songs for you guys.”

Friends called it a classic display of Graper bravado, a perfect illustration of his favorite motto: “Go big or go home.”