Just keep swimming: I started swimming competitively at the age of five. I started swimming for a summer league team call the Mission Valley Barracudas. Once I turned seven years old, I started swimming with the older kids, which were technically categorized as the faster kids. My coaches wanted me to swim with the older group, which consisted with junior high, and high school aged kids because swimming with my age group bracket was no longer challenging. Swimming was my favorite thing to do and still is. If I wasn’t swimming, I was most likely playing with Jonny and Alex or playing with my Legos. For the most part swimming in the older group was fun and challenging. Having longer and tougher workouts made me unstoppable when it came to competing …show more content…
Since I was doing just enough to pass and graduate high school, they plan was for me to go to junior college so I could still swim for Debbie. I had ruined my chances to receiving scholarship from major colleges because of my grades. My swimming had attracted lots of interest, however the colleges saw me as a academic risk. I felt so ashamed in myself. I was a fool for thinking my swimming talent would be enough to swim for any college I wanted. My parents were disappointed to but not because I didn’t get offers from schools. They were upset because they knew that I knew how badly screwed up my chances. Debbie on the other hand was not as disappointed I though she would be. She looked at it as two more years to coach me. Plus she thought going to junior college would help me understand the value of education. During the summer of graduating from high school is when I got burnt out. Even though I swan year round, summer is still the busiest time for swimming. After my final championship meet of the summer, I knew I was done. After the last swim meet of the summer, Debbie gave all the swimmers two weeks off from swimming. During that time I really thought about every thing and decided that I needed to take a break before I start disliking swimming. I expressed this to Debbie over the phone because I could not bear to tell her in person. She was not happy and thought I was making a big mistake in stopping. She suggested that I take a month off to think about it some more but to not fully walk away. I took her advice and took a month off from swimming. During that month I did not really think about swimming or miss it. I was too focused on getting prepared to start college. Once a month passed by, Debbie gave me a call to find out what was on my mind and if I wanted to come to practice. Debbie is a difficult person to say no to. I went up to her
I have been swimming year-round on a club team since the age of six and when I was younger improving came relatively easily. However, around age 13, I hit a training plateau despite having the same work ethic and focus that I had previously had. I grew to despise swimming and at points I wanted to quit. However, unlike Junior, I had role models and mentors who were positive influences on me and who helped me to overcome this challenge. Primarily, I had several of my best friends on the team who convinced me to keep persevering and to not simply quit the sport that I loved so much just because I was no longer dropping time. For example, every day I watch my close friends Lizanne and Cate come to practice and give it their all, regardless of the numerous injuries and medical issues that plagued their swimming career; their positive outlook and dedication motivated me to try even harder than I had before. Moreover, I had by parents, something that Junior did not have; my parents were always there to support me after yet another disappointing meet reminding me that “you get five minutes for a win and five minutes for a lost”. My parents where my voice of reason as I tried to work through my issues; they were always there to encourage me, but also were very honest with me
early athletic years to swim, a sport in which he became the top U.S. competitor in his age
Neither my parents nor I had that desire for myself; therefore not one sport was more central than the other. Academic success stood as the most valuable compared to athletic success. That environment placed less pressure for me to train with greater intensity and focus when it came to competitive sports. Sports were extra-curricular activities as opposed to a full-time job and the pathway to the subsequent level. I absolutely benefitted from playing multiple sports throughout my youth. I have participated in soccer, basketball, football, track & field, wrestling, and even taekwondo. Competing in all these sports developed me into a better athlete and enhanced my fundamental movement skills that are necessary for all sports. In addition, it gave me multiple perspectives that I might not have had otherwise. This improved my ability to be a teammate and instilled in me a more competitive nature. Although different sports brought different demands, the growth of confidence remained the same. I never suffered from burnout during my youth, nor did I detest my experience. Ultimately, participating in multiple sports gave me time to decide where my passion lied and what I preferred to play. As a result, my participation in high school sports was limited to only football and
Growing up, I played just about every sport our small town provided: soccer, basketball, baseball, football, boxing, golf, you name it. There was only one sport that I had yet to embark upon: running; however, during my seventh grade year, I decided to try it out, and it ended up being a great decision. From the beginning, the one thing that drew me in was the atmosphere. All of the older runners on the team really embraced us younger runners, despite our youth and immaturity. As a seventh grade kid not really knowing what to expect participating in a varsity sport, this gesture really meant a lot, and it is one of the main reasons that I fell in love with the sport. I stayed with this sport throughout my high school career, and now that I am older, I have the opportunity of being on the other side of the spectrum. My teammates and I love having the middle school kids on the team, and I try my best to ensure that they have a similar experience to the one I had just five short years ago.
As a competitive swimmer, I train 19 hours a week as a member of the University of Manitoba Bison’s Men’s Swim Team. However, growing up, I was never a great swimmer. I just didn’t have the classic swimmer body type—tall, long limbs with big hands and feet—but I loved the sport. Looking back, I can imagine how my parents felt. Their short, scrawny kid desperately wanted to be in a sport that he wasn’t meant for.
In the blink of an eye your entire life can change drastically. You could be going North at 90 miles an hour and then before you even realize what is happening you are headed South at 180 miles an hour. You never know when something is going to happen and you have no clue what that something could be. Situations pop up in people’s lives all of the time and turn their life around whether it be for the better or for the worse. The situation that really “switched the channel” (Kirszner, 121) of my life was the night that I heard my older sister’s screams coming from our answering machine late at night.
iving up my week and weekend nights for swim practice was something I was used to by the time I started high school. Swimming, was my calling, and with that came many sacrifices. Practices were everyday, Monday through Friday and sometimes on Saturdays, and consisted of countless sets of sprinting, kicking and pulling. The only thing that kept us stable during practice was counting down the time on the clock, “Just thirty more minutes, and I can relax for another twenty hours.” From there I would go home in time to shower and finish homework. Finishing what I needed to do before midnight was considered luck. The cycle repeated itself as I would get up the next day and do it again. However, there are many other aspects to this sport besides
I’ve always been the type of person that truly enjoys athletics and have participated in nearly all sports offered to me. I started playing sports in elementary with club softball and basketball. As I entered my middle and high school years I was able to add the school sanctioned sports to my list of activities. This afforded me the opportunity of competing in volleyball, basketball, golf, track and softball. The camaraderie and life lessons of sports seemed invaluable to me.
Moving is lots of work took me 4 days to pack and 5 to get everything from one house to the new house in Firestone. It was an extremely sad day when we moved because we have lived in that house for 10 years and have had so many memories like when i had my first sleep over i went down the stairs in a pillowcase and broke my hand and the time my sister did a cartwheel down the stairs and broke the railing and my dad was so hostile and frustrated. The part that made me so hostile is when people had to come to the house and look at the home very cautiously i could not be in the house at all i had to leave and and be out of the house of half an hour with my 1 year old brother. It's extremely stressing to have a little brother that but I admire
Imagine that it’s the closest swim meet of the season, and your team is losing by a mere two points. You know that your race could pull your team ahead, but you’re starting to doubt yourself. As the starting signal goes off, you dive in and hear your team explode into cheers. This gives you a boost of confidence and you pull ahead, slamming into the finish and out touching your opponents. With a smile on your face, you proudly turn to your teammates who are all screaming and jumping around. Joining a summer swim team ensures a summer filled with fun, and being with a community of supportive and happy people every day. Swim practice is also an amazing workout with serious health benefits, and can even help lower the risk of heart disease. Many people may be afraid of the commitment of practices and meets, but in reality, practices are not mandatory and are actually very fun, and meets are optional.
I still wanted to be in the water all of the time, and since swim season was only in the winter, I had to get into the water earlier than that. So, I joined water polo in middle school. My love for that sport flourish and that become what I wanted to do. When I first started I was pretty good, I played a lot for the middle school team, and decided to play
Have you ever had a moment in time that seems like minutes or hours even though it was only a few seconds? Have you ever seen everything before you play out in slow motion, where you are aware of everything around you, yet not knowing what was going on? I have, and as I look back on it, I feel very blessed and protected. On March 21, 1987, I decided to take a little swim in our swimming pool and almost drowned.
I started competitive swimming when I was twelve years old, while most societally deemed "good" swimmers started swimming before they were even in school, giving them close to a decade's advantage over me in practicing the sport.
Have you ever had a moment in time that seems like minutes or hours even though it was only a few seconds? Have you ever seen everything before you play out in slow motion, where you are aware of everything around you, yet not knowing what was going on? I have, and as I look back on it, I feel very blessed and protected. On December 22, 01, I decided to take a little swim in our swimming pool and almost drowned. I still can remember it like yesterday. This incident almost cost me my life,
“Why don’t you use your locker? You’re going to have back problems before you even graduate”. These are words that are repeated to me daily, almost like clockwork. I carry my twenty-pound backpack, full of papers upon papers from my AP classes. The middle pouch of my backpack houses my book in which I get lost to distract me from my unrelenting stress. The top pouch holds several erasers, foreshadowing the mistakes I will make - and extra lead, to combat and mend these mistakes. Thick, wordy textbooks full of knowledge that has yet to become engraved in my brain, dig the straps of my backpack into my shoulders. This feeling, ironically enough, gives me relief - my potential and future success reside in my folders and on the pages of my notebooks.