"She's definitely looking to do some big things and I have some big goals for her," Tramel said. "My personal best time is one of them."
Smith originally planned to set her goal around the team best of 16 minutes, 17 seconds. Her plans changed when one day early this season she came back to her locker and found 16:17 replaced with another number: 16:15, Tramel's personal best time.
But two years ago, she wasn't ready to compete at this level. Smith has come a long way since entering North Carolina as a struggling freshman to becoming the top women's distance swimmer for the No. 15 Tar Heels.
"Whitney has improved tremendously," said UNC coach Frank Comfort. "In the middle of her sophomore year she really started to figure out college swimming and a year and a half of hard work really came through for us superbly at the end of last season."
This weekend, at a meet against No. 16 Michigan, Smith not only won the 1,000-yard freestyle by 12 seconds and helped the relay team win the 800 freestyle and came in second to teammate Becky Acker by only .09 seconds, but also set a career best in the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:53.21.
That performance was enough to boost her lead by several points in Tramel's new success points system.
The system pairs each distance swimmer with another and makes each swimmer responsible for their partner.
If one partner misses practice without an excuse, both lose a point. If one is late for practice, he or she lose a point.
Swimmers gain points by having a season best time, a game best time or a career best time at a meet.