GREEN BAY – The Phoenix swim and dive team has become more of a tight-knit family than a collegiate swim team, having to lean on each other after being struck by tragedy not once, but twice within the past year.
The sudden and unexpected passing of Jordan Sopjes and Alex Smolecki almost exactly one year apart brought devastation throughout the UW-Green Bay athletic department, but hit one member of the community harder than others.
Just one year after learning to cope with the loss of one of his best friends, Sopjes, Phoenix swimmer Sebastian Smolecki had to lean on his teammates once again after tragically losing his brother and teammate, Alex.
Despite being afflicted with so much close personal loss, Sebastian has made certain to honor the legacy of those he has lost through what he does best — grueling physical activity.
“Jordan was an upperclassman when I came in. He was a year older than me and we ended up living in the same house. We bonded over physical activity a lot — things like Spikeball and just being outside. We’d occasionally do this thing called the MURPH. You run a mile with a weighted vest and then you do 100 pullups, 200 push ups, 300 air squats and then you run another mile and we did that a few times over the summer. We were both super competitive,” said Sebastian.
Sopjes, 22, swam the butterfly and freestyle for the Phoenix and was in his final semester at UW-Green Bay studying human biology when he passed away unexpectedly on Feb. 20, 2024.
Though his death hit the Phoenix swim community hard, Sebastian was determined to honor his memory.
“We were sitting in the garage and it was me, Jordan and Jordan’s girlfriend at the time. We made a bet that by the age of 40 we’d run an Ironman. We burned it into a piece of 2x4, which I still keep in my closet,” said Sebastian.
“About a month after he passed, we went back to the house to clean up some of his stuff and we found the 2x4 again. I started talking to my sister (Magdalena) and she said, ‘You should do it.’ I said, ‘I’d love to but I don’t have any money.’ She was the one that helped me set up the Gofundme and everything.That was all around March. I was super ambitious and naive about how hard it was actually going to be.”
The local community rallied around Sebastian to make his efforts a reality.
“Just the cost of the Ironman is close to $950 just for the ticket itself. Then I had to get a hotel. Luckily I had someone donate me a bike, but bikes usually go for around $2,000 on the lower end. Someone else donated a helmet. I got a wetsuit for around $200. What ended up happening was I raised $6,000 and I donated right around $3-4,000 to The Hidden Opponent which is an advocate for student-athlete mental health awareness.”
As he trained to compete in the Ironman, Sebastian said that his brother Alex was a major asset in his support system.
“During the time I was training for the Ironman, my brother was training for a marathon out west somewhere – maybe Crater Lake. He got an internship with United Airlines so he was just travelling the world. We would talk about each other’s training and what we did that week. I remember he texted me and he was like, ‘Yeah, I just ran 13 miles,’ and I said, ‘Oh, nice. What were you drinking?’ and he said, ‘Drinking? I didn’t even bring water or anything.’ I was like, ‘What? You ran 13 miles without even drinking water?’” Sebastian said, reminiscing about his talks with Alex.
“He helped me through it a lot and my whole family kept encouraging me and pushing me. Same with my whole swim team. They would come out on runs with me here and there. Everyone was just super supportive. During the actual Ironman pretty much the whole swim team came down to cheer me on which was amazing, too.”
Sebastian said that the support he got during the summer of 2024 extended far beyond his family and the Green Bay athletics department.
“Around the end of August I got in contact with Green Bay Multisport. They are a triathlete club in Green Bay and they really helped in guiding me with the correct nutrition and workouts I had to do. Without them it probably would have taken me a lot longer than the time I actually completed it in.”
In September, Sebastian made the trip down to Madison and completed his and Sopjes goal of becoming Ironmen.
“I finished in 12 hours and 20-something minutes. It was funny — my mentor when I got out of the water — since I’m a swimmer — I got out fourth or fifth and he was telling me if I kept up that pace I would qualify for Kona and kept cheering me on. We got onto the bike and the run and I saw a lot of people passing me during those sections. I was happy though. My goal was just to finish by the cutoff time,” said Smolecki.
Now that he has completed the Ironman challenge in Sopjes’s honor, Sebastian said that he is proud to look back on their time together and think about the impact Sopjes had on his life.
According to Sebastian, one of his favorite memories with Sopjes was not in the pool, but sitting in their room for hours on end playing chess.
“We’d start at a reasonable time, around 3 or 4 p.m. and before we knew it we’d be 10 hours into playing chess and be like, ‘Oh no, we’ve got to go to bed — we have morning practice tomorrow. We’d play chess for hours. It would go from best two out of three to five to seven,” said Sebastian.
Just five days after the anniversary of Sopjes’s passing, tragedy again struck the Phoenix swim community when Sebastain’s brother Alex was involved in a fatal shooting accident that took his life on Feb. 25, 2025.
Sebastian said that learning of his brother’s passing has been the most trying time in his life, but having his teammates and family to lean on has helped him come out even stronger.
“Since my freshman year, this swim team has gone through a lot of ups and downs. One word that sticks in my head is just adversity. These troubling times suck. They hurt really bad but once you get past that hurt, you end up being a stronger person at the end of it. Everyone on the swim team is like a big family now,” said Sebastian.
Sebastian said that he was really close to his brother and loved his goofy and energetic personality.
“Knowing someone your entire life, it’s so hard to pick one moment that means the most. He came up here once when he was a senior in high school before he was actually up here for school and we were going to go to this event. It was for a Halloween party event and we told him to make sure that he dresses okay because it might get warm in the room with all the people there. He came out of my bedroom in a full furry onesie — a Cat in the Hat costume. He was already sweating just in my room and I was like, ‘Alex, what are you doing?’ He wouldn’t really think things through all the way before he did stuff, but he always made everyone laugh. He had a beautiful smile. It was a super contagious smile,” said Sebastian.
Alex was in his junior year at UW-Green Bay, but was on track to graduate early in May of this year.
“We swam together our entire lives on the same club team and the same high school team and he just decided to come here and swim with me. He was pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering. He was a smart cookie,” said Sebastian.
Outside of his love of the water, Alex was an avid outdoor enthusiast — another characteristic he shared with his brother.
“Alex loved doing 14ers out in Colorado. There were these huge mountains and he would just set his mind to something and just get it done — maybe not always in the best way. He didn’t always prepare the best, but he would get it done,” said Sebastian.
Alex began his love of climbing at just 14 years old. That, paired with his love of travel, provided him with some of the best opportunities for adventure in his short life, including a 48-hour trip to Japan to hike Mt. Fuji and be back in time for work the next day.
Sebastian said that his brother’s love of climbing gave him the idea to honor his brother’s death, similar to his Ironman for Sopjes — by ‘climbing’ the height of Mt. Everest.
“That was for Alex’s birthday on March 30. Since Wisconsin doesn’t have any big mountains I figured that I would just climb the steps of Mt. Everest on the stair master for him. I did it within the span of four days. I went on the stair master for a couple of hours each day and just climbed.”
According to Sebastian, the one thing that kept him motivated through all 58,276 steps — the height calculated to reach the summit — was his brother.
“It was Alex. Every step was climbing higher towards him. I don’t know how to describe it but he always strived to be high up above the clouds. He was getting his pilots license and working at United. He was always climbing tall mountains — just trying to be higher,” said Sebastian.
Alex’s passing no doubt had a profound impact on the entire Green Bay athletic community.
In honor of his memory, the Phoenix swim team organized a marathon walk from the Kress Events Center to Lambeau Field and back in honor of Alex.
“The marathon was my girlfriend McKenna’s idea. It was like a week after Alex passed and they were saying we should walk a marathon. The first idea was that we would just get some of his friends and it was like 15-20 people. It just kept growing and snowballing. It was awesome,” said Sebastian.
“We sat down with Cassie and Sean from the athletic department and they said, ‘What do you want? What’s your vision and we’ll get it done.’ It was awesome. Andy — he was the one who recorded my Ironman video — he set up these stations around the marathon and people would come up and just share their favorite memories with Alex. I think we had close to 100-120 people show up. Just everyone talking to each other and the love everyone was displaying towards each other was wonderful.”
Beyond just the physical adventures the Phoenix swim team has embarked on, Alex’s circle of friends has started a movement to encourage people to get out of their comfort zones by doing a physical activity or challenge in Alex’s honor.
The hashtag #aleksfunniestchallenge is a movement for the year of 2025 that asks people in the community to do an activity once a month.
“That was my sister’s idea. It’s one thing that we really want to share with everyone. It’s basically just to challenge each other to do a different physical activity once a month or once a week. Even if it’s nothing crazy — you don’t have to do an Ironman or walk a marathon. It could be going on a mile run or walk. Just do something physically demanding that you might not normally do outside of your comfort zone,” said Sebastian.
“I saw someone on Alex’s birthday walk a marathon. I saw somebody else climb a 14er. I’ve also seen families go on walks together, which I think is just wonderful. Some people do crazy challenges, and others are just enjoying nature with their loved ones.”
Sebastian said that knowing his brother is watching him from above has given him the strength to continue to challenge himself every day.
“He’d love it. I think he’d be really happy. I bet he’s looking down and he’s happy,” said Sebastian.
According to Sebastian, if there is one thing he wants people to take away from his brother’s short, but full life, it’s to live life to the fullest.
“Just do things. Even though Alex passed away young, I think he got a full life’s span of adventures. If you have an idea or something in mind, just do it.”
The most important thing Sebastian said he has learned from the life, love and loss he has experienced over the past year is to not be afraid to lean on those around you for support.
“Life is hard, but it makes it a lot easier when you have good people and a good support system around you. And to talk. Talk about what’s on your mind. Not to bottle it up. Try to talk to other people.”
Sebastian is finishing up his time at UW-Green Bay pursuing his masters degree after a successful final season of swim, breaking his own 200 IM record and earning the 2025 Coaches’ Award for representing team values and leading by example.
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