Flight plans

Lauren Delaney wants to be a pilot. Elvira Chiccarelli wants to be a flight surgeon. Swimming may help them accomplish their goals. The pair received appointments to attend the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., for next year and will swim for the Falcons under Coach Casey Converse. �I�m really excited about it,� Delaney said. �I�ve only been swimming since my freshman year of high school, so to add four more years on to my career is a dream. I�m really, really excited.� Chiccarelli shared Delaney�s enthusiasm, tempered by a little anxiety. �I�m also really nervous, I guess,� she said. �It is a really big challenge and it is a big honor, I guess. I don�t want to fall short. I don�t think I will, but it is still scary anyway.� The two met last school year when Delaney heard about Chiccarelli also applying to the Air Force. Since then, they�ve become close friends. They went on their recruiting trip in September together and have been each other�s sounding board for their concerns heading off to college. Converse heavily recruited the two, calling weekly and keeping up with their swim times. Both girls are expected to swim as freshmen and said Converse told them not to worry about the team until after basic training. �He was so good to work with,� Delaney said. �He totally understands why we�re there. We don�t go to the academy for swimming. We go to the academy to be an officer in the military.� Delaney, a senior at Mosley, and Chiccarelli, a Bay County resident who is a senior at Okaloosa-Walton College Collegiate High in Niceville, were recruited by Converse as members of the Panama City Swim Team. Chiccarelli joined PCST in November, making the move from the Bluewater Barracudas with whom she had competed since she was 5. �It�s unusual in the swimming community for a coach to go to one team and see two of his future athletes at one time,� PCST coach Jonathan Kaplan said. �It�s even more unusual for two athletes from the same team to get appointments from the academy and swim for the academy at the same time.� Delaney said she has wanted to be an officer for as long as she can remember. Her father, Dennis Delaney, is a 1982 graduate of the academy and a pilot for Southwest Airlines. He took her to visit the academy five years ago and she�s been hooked on becoming a pilot ever since. They�ve talked about the good, the bad and the ugly of military life, he said. �And she�s continued to keep her interest going,� he said. �I�ve tried to be very honest with her. Her interest just continued to grow. I think she really likes the idea of a challenge.� Both girls had other �civilian� schools on their college wish lists. Chiccarelli was looking at Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Notre Dame and Princeton. Delaney looked at Florida and Vanderbilt. Both had their eye on the Naval Academy when they received their appointments to the Air Force. The girls had to receive nominations to be considered at the academy. Delaney received hers from Sen. Bill Nelson, Rep. Allen Boyd and Vice President Dick Cheney. She will need corrective eye surgery because she doesn�t have 20/20 eyesight, a requirement to fly. Chiccarelli has heard stories about being a woman in the military from her mother, who goes by the same name. The elder Elvira Chiccarelli was one of the first female dentists in the Air Force, according to her daughter, who wants to be a flight surgeon and take care of the flight crew and ground crew. Delaney is so excited she can�t stop counting the days until they report for basic training. Five months, three days from today to be exact. �I just wanted to get outside of Florida at first,� Chiccarelli said. �I realized I can do more than just get outside of Florida. I can do something cool and get outside of Florida.�