John's Journal: A Family Affair For State Swimming Officials

Swimming is in the blood of some families and the Punykos of Duluth are No. 1 in that category, as evidenced by this week’s MSHSL girls swimming and diving state championships at the University of Minnesota’s Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center.

During the Class 2A portion of the competition on Friday and Saturday, Judy Seliga-Punyko will serve as referee while her daughter, Kelly Punyko, will be the starter. They are the first mother and daughter to hold those positions for a state swimming meet; this will be the 69^th girls state championships in Minnesota.

“I’m pretty excited to be officiating with my mom,” said Kelly, 27.” It’s just unique. We don’t get lot of other mother/daughters or father/sons officiating together.”

Their family history seemingly involves swimming at every major juncture. Judy met her husband Bill Punyko through the sport. They didn’t know each other when Judy was a swimmer at Hamline University and Bill swam at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Later, they met while Bill was coaching swimming at UMD while Judy worked out in the pool while getting a master’s degree there. They coached on the YMCA and high school level in the Duluth-Superior area, and Bill remains the head girls swimming coach at Superior High School.

Judy was a student in Eveleth when Title IX became law in 1972. A girls swimming team was started, and her life in the water was off and swimming.

“We had this little four-lane, 20-yard pool,” she said. “It was new to all of us. Some people didn’t even know how to swim.”

Judy and Bill have three daughters, and of course all of them became swimmers. All three went to state while at Duluth East; Renee graduated in 2006, Emily in 2011 and Kelly in 2015. Renee swam at Hamline and Emily did the same at the University of St. Thomas.

Kelly was a six-year letterwinner in high school and was named a recipient of the MSHSL Triple-A Award (Academics, Arts, and Athletics). Kelly swam at St. Olaf College and was an assistant coach at Duluth East for two years. She is engaged to be married to another swimmer (no shock), Michael Foss. While she was swimming at St. Olaf, he was swimming at St. Thomas.

Judy has been a certified MSHSL official for six years and Kelly for three years.

As Kelly was wrapping up her college swimming career, Judy came to a realization that led to her becoming an official.

“During her senior year in college, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve had 12 years of college swimming with my girls. This is it.’ I officiated with the YMCA team when the kids swam there and I also officiated for a year before I had kids. I realized, ‘I can officiate and still be involved.’ ”

Judy and Kelly worked a meet together about a month ago in Duluth. Kelly lives in Crystal (she works as an exercise physiologist at Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbot Northwestern), and when her mother asked her to drive north and fill in for an official who couldn’t make it, north she went.

“She worked it out, she came up and that’s the weekend they got engaged,” Judy said.

“It was kind of fun to be back on our home turf,” said Kelly.

This week’s high school state championships will mark the first time Judy will serve as referee at that meet. Kelly first worked the girls state meet two years ago and told her mom, ‘You have to do this.’ ”

Along with coaching and officiating, the family still swims, too. They compete on the masters level in individual events as well as joining together in family-themed relays.

Kelly is thrilled that her mom convinced her to become an official.

“It’s been really fun,” she said. “It’s such a change, high school to college and back to high school. I’ll see the same teams and see girls improve through the year and I’m officiating with officials who officiated me, which is neat.”

Judy is happy to be in a position that may serve as inspiration for younger women.

“I think it is good to for them to see women officiating at state,” she said.

--MSHSL senior content creator John Millea has been the leading voice of Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Threads at johnmilleamn and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts. Contact John at [email protected] or [email protected]