My High School Swimming Career Has Come to a Close.

Freshman Year

I came into high school feeling like the under dog. I was 5 feet 10 inches going into a high school that competes for the Texas state swimming championship every single year. The freshman class that entered high school with me was disgustingly quick and I was intimidated at times because I was not the fastest kid out there. I also had a solid foundation at my club team where I had swam with my coach 1 year prior to getting into high school and me and him were tight. 

High school started off bad, I practiced from 5-7:30 every morning with my high school then 3:30-5:30 every afternoon with my club. I literally zombied my way through the first few weeks of school until my high school coach gave us 30 extra minutes to sleep. That sleep was well used and I was physically and mentally better after that. In December of 2007 I had my club “winter” championship meet and I vastly improved all my times because I was so well conditioned from hours spent in the pool.

In the second semester I did not know if I was going to swim varsity or not up until a week before districts. I swam varsity and ended up qualifying for regionals in the 500 free. We won districts that year, as well as regionals. In a span of four weeks I had four swim meets to try and get a certain cut in one of my races, needless to say I did not make it and my season ended there. Freshman year was beyond hell for me, I hoped the future would be brighter.

Sophmore Year

As sophomore year came my fellow sophmores became even faster, kids I once was the same speed as now could beat me easily. Sophmore year proved to be one of the worst years of high school for a number of reasons besides swimming.

There were some pool issues that made it very hard for me to commute to my coach at my club team. Instead of the 20 minute commute it was a 30 minute commute and I just could not make it, so I swam for another coach who I had problems with in the past. I ended up moving back to my coach but my season was put on hold as I had excruciating back pains that took me out a while and caused me to miss my winter champs meet. I swam through christmas break very painfully. My back still bothers me to this day.

Back in the second semester I went to districts and ended up going a lot faster then the year before but missed top-6 which means I missed regionals, we did end up winning districts that year. At my spring champs meet I ended up getting sick right before which caused me to swim very poorly. Sophmore year was a definite year to forget.

Junior Year

I was now an upper classman, I had a very successful summer season and was very confident going into my junior year. They do say, though, that school wise junior year is the hardest, I just hoped it would not happen to me.

Swimming got hard trying to balance with school. I was losing confidence with swimming high school because of the speed around me. My fellow juniors were looking at high things like national meets and maybe the Olympic Trials. I struggled with school and was forced to skip a week right before my winter champs meet and I swam very flat, it was quite understandable.

Now, the second semester may have been the most upsetting semester in all of high school. At a high school dual meet I hurt my shoulder and was forced to kick for five weeks up until districts. At districts I was looking good to qualify for regionals, but after warming up and hitting my head on the wall before my first race I realized I had a concussion, that ended my high school season right there, again we won districts. The next week I had my spring champs meet and it was not very good mainly because I hadn’t been swimming as much as I liked with the combination of the shoulder injury plus my concussion. 

Senior Year

Senior year was beyond exciting. With college on the horizon and a full year of training injury free, the sky was the limit.

Even through the past three hard years of swimming I was still able to impress one college coach. In November of 2010 I signed a letter of intent to swim with the University of Texas of the Permian Basin which guaranteed me a spot on the 2011-12 roster the following fall. Also my high school swim team had swimmers sign to go to University of Texas, Stanford University, University of Missouri Science and Technology, and Gannon University. That November I also got to travel with my club team to Colorado Springs where we trained in high elevation for a week and grew as a team. It was unforgettable. That winter I had my most successful meet in a long time with many time drops.

I swam all through Christmas with great difficulty due to the massive work load of two a days and insane amounts of yards. Districts pulled around and I just plain sucked, it was a terrible meet but I could care less about high school swimming at that time. My team ended up winning districts and regionals and placed fourth at state. I finished my high school swimming career with a meet that I was very well prepared for and honestly it was one of the best meets I had ever had, I dropped in nearly everything and it was great.

In all I put around 4 million yards into the pool in four years. That is about 2272 miles, that is a little less than the distance from NYC to LA.

Swimming has taught me a lot in four years. 1. I know I am not a natural athlete, I became fast off of dedication. 2. Swimming is a pretty hard sport. 3. I learned how to work hard, this can translate into anything that life may throw at me, and I am prepared to take anything on.

“The pain is only temporary, but the pride lasts forever.”