Photo Gallery

TACOMA, Wash. – Better than yesterday.
 
Matthea Gaines and her teammates on the Pacific Lutheran University swimming squad get that message over and over again from Lutes head coach Andrew Lum.
 
Better than yesterday.
 
For the sophomore from nearby Graham (about a 20-mile drive from PLU), that message clicked. It resonated. In fact, it even showed up on her hotel room door one night when the Lutes were competing at an out-of-town meet.
 
"Any time I have a bad day or anything happens that's negative, I'm reminded of that slogan just to be better than yesterday," she said. "At meets, we traditionally will decorate the (room) doors with a quote and a picture. I had it on my hotel door – 'Better than yesterday' – and I saw that and I thought, 'Perfect.' That was representative of me."
 
Better than yesterday.
 
Of course, even as Gaines navigates life with that positive, forward-looking philosophy – she can see, taste, smell and feel the world around her, but isn't able to hear it -- some days are so good that they're hard to top.
 
One such day was a couple Novembers ago – the Sunday before Thanksgiving in 2024 – when the team was heading home from Newberg, Oregon, after a meet at George Fox University. Gaines had received an e-mail informing her she would be part of the United States team that would compete at the Deaflympics the following November (2025) in Tokyo.
 
"I told my teammates and said, 'Hey, I just got this e-mail,' and my teammates said, 'Hey, that is so cool,'" Gaines said.
 
But that wasn't quite the end of it. The Lutes often will do "Shoutouts" after a meet or practice when they're all gathered together.
 
"On the way back, someone during Shoutouts said, 'Hey, Matthea made the Deaflympics!'" Gaines said. "Coach goes, 'What? You didn't tell me first?'
 
"It was a really fun experience."
 
For Lum, it was an exciting moment, as well – even if he hadn't been the first to know.
 
"I kind of gave her some heat in a fun, jabbing kind of way," he said, laughing as he recalled it all. "The bus just erupted (with cheers and noise) – I felt like our bus driver swerved really quickly. Like any kind of Olympic team out there, it's based on pure talent, and she got the call. It's a privilege and honor to be the coach of anyone who gets named to the team.
 
"I wish I could say that I was surprised," Lum added, "but I wasn't."
 
With the memories of her trek to Tokyo nearly three months ago still fresh in her mind, Gaines will be hoping to make a few more as she and the Lutes prepare for the Northwest Conference Championships, set for Feb. 13-15 in Boise. At that season-ending meet, she very likely will swim the 50-yard freestyle, the 100 free, and the 100 back. Gaines also could be among the Lutes being considered for a spot on either the 200 free relay or 400 free relay.
 
RIGHT AT HOME IN THE WATER
Seeking more and better opportunities for someone like herself who is Deaf, Gaines and her mother moved across the Pacific Ocean from her native Philippines to Washington when Matthea was just three.
 
Living along the state's coastline, fishing became a regular part of Gaines' life during the summer months. So did crabbing. Around the time she reached the age of seven, she was enrolled in swimming lessons.
 
Turns out she and the water made quite a good fit. By the time Gaines reached middle school, she started competing, and kept competing when she got to Mount Tahoma High School, located a mere 5½ miles from PLU.
 
The sprint freestyle races (50 and 100 yards) and the backstroke are her favorites, "but in high school, I started checking out different events that I wanted to try like the 100 butterfly," she said. "Then when I started college, I started focusing on the 50 and 100 free and the back, as well. The fly and the breaststroke were not my thing."
 
Gaines also swam with a local club team. But the thought of racing internationally wasn't on her aquatic radar – primarily because she wasn't aware that such opportunities existed for her.
 
Then she found out they did exist. Gaines had switched club teams and her new coach (Emily Murray) reached out to her with some information that definitely piqued her interest.
 
"She said, 'Hey, are interested in the Deaf Worlds?' and I said, 'What's that?'" Gaines recalled. "She explained it to me, and I said, 'Oh yeah, I do want to do that.'" (The World Deaf Swimming Championships (Deaf Worlds) and the Deaflympics are two different meets.)
 
So Gaines went and did that. She was one of seven swimmers on the U.S. team (three women, four men) who made the trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, in mid-August 2023. She competed in eight individual events, covering all four strokes, with a top finish of eighth in the 50-meter breaststroke.
 
TACOMA TO TOKYO
But she was just getting started.
 
"That's when I became more aware of the Deaflympics," Gaines said of her trip to Argentina. "So I thought, 'Why not chase that as my next goal?'
 
Gaines saw the outreach for swimmers who might be interested in competing. There were no trials, per se, as there are for the regular Olympics, But there was still a formal application and selection process, which she completed, and ultimately was chosen.
 
At the same time, Gaines was entering her senior year at Mount Tahoma and was looking ahead toward college. At Pacific Lutheran, she found the nursing program. She found a swim team and coaches who were enthusiastically willing to make sure she felt included. She found appropriate accommodations such as sign language interpreters.
 
"It was a good place for me to fit in," Gaines said.
 
During the recruiting process, she shared her plans for the Deaflympics with PLU coach Lum and inquired about preparing for that event while also competing for the Lutes.
 
Lum was all in.
 
"My big thing is that I'm equally serving and providing visibility to all of our student-athletes," he said. "She was very straight-forward from the get-go and said, 'I want to do the Deaflympics. Will that be an issue if I decide to take a season off?' I told her that I wanted to do anything I can to support that." (It turned out that Gaines was still able to compete for the Lutes.)
 
STROKING HER STUFF IN A STORIED VENUE
In the middle of last November, Gaines boarded a plane for Tokyo. Once there, she was one of more than 3,000 athletes from approximately 80 countries competing in 21 sports.
 
"All I could think of was just everything in my career thus far, all the people who have been willing to support me and believe in me – especially the PLU swim family – they are how I was able to make it to the Deaflympics," Gaines said.
 
The swimming competition took place in the same pool that hosted the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics. The same pool where her favorite athlete, American butterflier Torri Huske, took fourth place in those Tokyo Games before going on to win gold in the 100 fly three years later at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
 
"It felt so unreal because I was actually swimming where all the Olympians from all the other countries had swum," Gaines said. "I was able to touch it and was able to be there, and it was so cool."
 
Just like in Buenos Aires at the Deaf Worlds two years earlier, Gaines had a busy schedule in Tokyo, swimming seven individual events. Her top finish was in the longest race on her schedule, the 200 backstroke, in which she placed 20th. She set personal-best times in the 50-meter free (30.27) and 100 free (1:07.23).
 
But the race that still sticks out in her mind was her first one: the 400 free relay. Gaines swam the second leg on the American team that finished in fourth place.
 
"To be on the international level, I was so nervous to be there because it was completely different than conference," she said. "There were so many people."
 
Gaines calmed those nerves by doing what most any athlete would do in a similar situation: She stuck with what she knew.
 
"I just did my regular routine before I got on the block that I normally do to prepare," she said, adding that once she hit the water, instead of thinking about it, "I just swam."
 
TORII GATE, DISNEYLAND … AND FOOD
Of course, it wasn't all swimming, all the time for Gaines during her stay in Japan.
 
"I was able to go to different places, not just Tokyo," she said "I went to Kyoto (one of Japan's oldest municipalities), and I also went to a Torii gate (which marks the entrance to Shinto shrines throughout Japan). And I got to tour Disneyland Tokyo – it was just about five minutes away from the pool and I got to go with my family."
 
Meal time brought its own delights.
 
"The food was so delicious," she said. "I got to try some stuff like sushi and ramen – It was amazing."
 
Whether it's a meet in PLU's own pool or a little farther afield in Newberg or Boise – or even half a world away in Tokyo or Buenos Aires – swimming remains a big part of Gaines' life. But as an aspiring nurse (she's thinking about pediatrics), academics takes up a sizable chunk of her days, too.
 
"I have time management skills. PLU is very much student first and athlete second," she said. "My coach is always flexible to make sure we're able to succeed in school and also succeed in swimming."
 
Lum has enjoyed having a front-row seat to Gaines' career the past couple of years, no matter where she's racing.
 
"We see the tireless work she puts into the pool and behind the scenes -- she works her butt off," he said. "She's an incredibly talented swimmer and arguably a much better human being. She's a great student and one of the best teammates I've ever seen."
 
And whether in or out of the swimming pool, Matthea Gaines is also someone who is always trying to make today …
 
… better than yesterday.