WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — A 42-year-old Wichita Falls High School swimming record was finally broken at this year’s state meet.

Old High Senior swimmer Conner Higginbotham has been making a splash in the record books throughout his entire swim career. His biggest accolades came during February’s state swim meet.

“I broke the 50 freestyle, the 100 hundred freestyle, which both were about like 40 or 50 years old and then the 200 freestyle relay and the 400 freestyle relay,” Higginbotham said.

Beating the previous school record of 21.76 seconds in the 50 free has been a goal of his since freshman year.

“I was super happy because I looked down at my time and was like anything below 21.76, I’m happy. That’s the record I been chasing for like four years. I looked up, I dropped 0.4 under it,” Higginbotham said.

That previous record was held by former Coyote swimmer Jim Bridgman. You can still see his records on display at the pool.

He doesn’t live in Wichita Falls anymore but is still connected to these swimmers. In fact, he’s been texting Conner ever since regionals, cheering him on every step of the way, and on Tuesday the two got to meet in person for the first time.

“These kids swim thousands of miles literally thousands in their career and they get to compete for 20 seconds and try to do their best and Conner did. He did a great job this year,” Bridgman said.

“It kind of felt like Rocky in the Creed movies, kind of being in Creed’s corner. Him calling me before meets and texting me and just kind of hyping me up and getting me focused on the races it was really nice,” Higginbotham said.

Swimming head coach Oyvind Zahl said this meeting has been months in the making.

“Jim has been texting me and we’ve kept in contact ever since then and he sort of made this plan of coming up to meet us and made this happen,” Zahl said.

The two couldn’t agree on whether they should have a rematch, but they could agree on one thing: the talent in this pool.

“My coach Ronnie Rogers back then was a good friend of mine, good mentor, and I can tell the coach here has the same kind of relationship with his boys,” Bridgman said.

“It feels like I kind of closed off the most important of chapter of high school in the best way possible with my best friends,” Higginbotham said.

His best friends, and now Old High’s best record.

Coach Zahl said they are always looking for swimmers, so if your student is interested, you can find more information here.