Americas Golden Girl

As I mentioned before swimmers aren’t based on their ability to master the techniques but also in the values they posses. The values they posses are respect, honesty, fairness and courage. I had to learn and use those values everyday I went to swimming practice. There’s one thing that I needed to have to become part of the discourse community, which was being passionate about swimming and not giving up. At the beginning it was really hard for me not to give up when I was exhausted, but after becoming more passionate for swimming I never gave up. There were moments when I thought of giving up, but I knew that if I really wanted to call my self a swimmer I shouldn’t give up and I didn’t. For example, once I was in a Swimming Festival in my High School where I competed the four different strokes. I always finished second in the 50-meter freestyle race, but that day I decided I would end up first place. The race started and I jumped into the water and started pacing my self so that I would finish strong. In the first 25-meters we were all tied up and I was starting to feel tired. But I knew I couldn’t give up, so I took a deep breath and pushed harder. I pushed harder and was able to win the first place. After this race, I realized that even though I felt like giving up, something inside me was telling me to push harder and that thought led me to success. I was able to

I woke up nauseous, too sick to eat. The whole drive there I was praying it would be cancelled. The fear consumed me; I couldn’t move. I just wanted to be home in my warm, comfy bed, instead I was diving into an ice cold pool. After warm-up my coach gave me a pep talk, but I was too nervous to listen. Sometimes I got so nervous I’d throw up, right before my event. To this day I still don’t understand why I got so anxious at swim meets. For the past several years, I have had a love hate relationship with swimming. I always struggled with swimming, and many times I wanted to quit. The time commitment and the physical requirements have always been a little too much for my mind to handle and it all comes to a crescendo when it is time to compete. I often wondered why I continued to put

The frosty morning breeze snaps at your ears and nose as you step away from the warm aroma of the bus, so you rush inside to the sports center. As you scurry in, you are stopped abruptly, meeting a large crowd of strangers gathered in the main entrance. There is barely room to squeeze past anyone, as every swimmer in New York who qualified for States, was in this one building. You finally find your way to the pool. After walking past several team banners, you finally see the banner labelled “Auburn Stingrays” and you spot your mom and dad off to the side, setting up a blanket for you to sit on. You toss your bag down and hug your parents for a final good luck before the meet. After you part from the hug, your hair is tousled by you dad, and they turn to go find a good seat before it gets filled up. “Ten minutes until warm up!” shouts the head coach of the team. You realize that you haven’t even had time to put on your swimsuit yet. You zip open your bag and grab your sleek swimsuit with a blue swizzle to resemble a stingray tail and run to the locker room to get

During this positivity mission, one of the most memorable moments occurred at the Niagara LSC Championships. A few newer faces joined us this year, which was a perfect opportunity to get to know some of the swimmers in other levels. Following one of the new swimmer’s races, I turned to him on the bench and complimented his excellent race. I will never forget the smile looking back at me when he asked in disbelief, “You know my name and you watched me?”. My answer was simple, “Of course, you are my teammate”.

When I first joined the North Attleboro Swim Team my freshman year of high school, I did not know what to expect. Prior to joining, I had never swam on a team before so it was a whole new experience to me. As the first week of swim started, I was apprehensive if I wanted to continue since I was not on the same caliber as my other teammates were. The practices were brutal but extremely rewarding, as I strived to prove myself and to my coaches. As my freshman season was under way, a couple of upperclassmen took

In this extraordinary book, the world’s most extraordinary distance swimmer writes about her emotional and spiritual need to swim and about the almost mystical act of swimming itself. Lynne Cox trained hard from age nine, working with an Olympic coach, swimming five to twelve miles each day in the Pacific. At age eleven, she swam even when hail made the water “like cold tapioca pudding” and was told she would one day swim the English Channel. Four years later—not yet out of high school—she broke the men’s and women’s world records for the Channel swim. In 1987, she swam the Bering Strait from America to the Soviet Union—a feat that,

During the spring of 2015, I missed all of the time cuts to make Speedo Sectionals, forcing me to compete in a much slower meet at the end of the season. There are few things I have experienced that are more crushing than trying my hardest and falling short of my goal. Despite the heavy disappointment, I used the opportunity to harden my resolve and use my strengths to my greatest advantage. Along with my coach’s help, I used my ability to think strategically and hone my technique through focus on the smallest details from how I would approach a swim mentally to how I would warm up. My coach had many important and useful suggestions and lessons from his past experience that required me to be an active learner that could apply his information.

Competing in high school athletics was the highlight of my time at Sterling High School, If I could I’d go back and do it all over agin. It allowed me to learn basic life skills, such as time management, self-accountability, leadership, and teamwork. But the most important thing it brought me was a strong support system built up of teammates, coaches, competitors, and officials. My sophomore English teacher once joked that “the girl’s swim team is like a cult” which is pretty close to the truth. From early August to late November twenty girls, a diver or two, and a pair of coaches were inseparable. Together we suffered together through every practice and worked to improve not only ourselves but each other. It was these long hours that shaped

“I can’t imagine where we would be in life if we were not happy with our experiences. I have never been one to be driven by anything other than an appreciation for life. That is the vision through which I run my life.” Staying happy and curious is a good way to keep going in life on a path to success. Prior to making a move to Tide Swimming in Virginia Beach, Jackson Roach was the National Youth Team Head Coach for the United States and previous to that National Team Coach’s and Athlete’s Consultant. Roach has more than 40 years of high level coaching experience, which includes mentoring and training olympic medalist and multiple national swimming champions (Roach, 2017). Jackson Roach can be credited for many notable success stories among many Olympians which has aided USA Swimming multiple times to Olympic victory. Roach’s history has proven that his strategy of applying past knowledge to new situations in order to succeed, along with understanding each individual is a perfect formula for attaining each swimmer’s full potential.

While McKeever was talking to the Amerucan Swimming Caching Association back in 2008, McKeever gave us some ionsight into her philosophy. McKeever origionally went into teaching because she wanted to be a teacher. However, the more she got into college and becoming an assistant coach, she saw how much she wanted to coach. Her philosophy is that it is not all about the workout. It is also about having a good mindset, having success, knowing

Arriving there was culture shock, thousands of teams were practicing for their big moment in any patch of grass or open area they could find. We arrived at our competition tent on Saturday morning with a rush of emotions. We started with flawless warmup, giving us the confidence to hold our heads high. With the thought in the back of our minds that “ no one has done or attempted this before”, “ we are only one of four teams in northwest Indiana to make it this far”, or “ what if were not good enough”. I stepped up realizing the team was looking at me to guide them through this bittersweet moment. I said calmly “ Ladies we are the best of the best. We have accomplished an incredible amount this season and the outcome of this competition will not take any of that away. I will not ask you to go out there and hit every stunt and throw every tumbling pass perfectly; but I will ask you to go out there and give it all you’ve got. If you walk off that floor without any regrets, thats all I could have ever wanted.”

My life was changed this summer after my winter swim team received unexpected news. We were told that we would no longer be able to practice at the same pool as before, leaving all of the swimmers without a place to practice. Unfortunately, this meant that my team, the Tiger Sharks, would no longer exist. I was devastated and now forced to bring myself upon a new team with unfamiliar faces. On my new team the head coach, Coach Bill, was able to assist me in making this transition easier and he was also exceptionally inviting to me and the other new swimmers. His unique training allowed me to immensely improve my swimming.

The girls swim team faced off at B-champs. They earned fourth place in the 400 yard freestyle and sixth place in the 200 years medley relay. "Working as a team helped to divide the task and multiply the success," Sophomore LisaMarie Minissale says about the teams relays.

Ryan Cox: English teacher and the Girl’s varsity swim coach. I have known him well since freshman year. He has watched my progress in swimming and has always been a funny person to talk to. Our sarcastic nature have us in synch, and I think we have a mature, coach-athlete relationship. He is very supportive, helps me focus on my goals, and has been a significant part of helping me reach them over the course of 3 years. I enjoy being part of the team. He really cares about his team and wants us all to improve and enjoy the process and I respect that most about him.

By this time I had started to go through puberty and became taller which enabled me to swim faster. The morning group was full of dedicated swimmers who were crazy enough to get up every morning to go jump into a pool and practice. Of course I was no different, but during April of that season I had started to lose my motivation. I began to skip practices and gave my parents excuses, which then they told me to take it easy. After two months of periodic practices, I realized that swimming was an activity that I wanted to do and that I loved, and I decided that I would not allow myself to quit, no matter how hard it became. When the new season started, I started to push myself, trying to keep up to the faster swimmers. I became close with my team mates as people who go through pain together get closer. We started to have more fun together from going out, to having funny conversations in the locker rooms. I also began to do travel meets where we would spend a few days together, eating, sleeping, and swimming. I spent more time out of the pool with my friends and even became romantically involved with one. Now, swimming has become one of the most important things to me, it has been the activity that has the most influence on my life. From my work ethic, sleeping habits, to my choice of friends, all of them are tied to