“My dad swam in high school and I wanted to try it out. So I joined a YMCA team, and for the first couple years I tried it out, and I got really into it in seventh grade.

My freshman year [in] winter break [was] like the hardest time for swim. I think a lot of coaches for club take advantage of kids not having school obligations during the break, and so you train a lot more. The reason it was so hard is because my coach decided that he wanted me to step up as far as keeping up with an upperclassman who also swam here. We would do practices just by ourselves and they were the hardest practices I’ve ever done. It was the first time I’d experienced being angry at my coach. I felt like it was so difficult that I convinced myself, it was stupid and that I didn’t have to do it, because it wasn’t worth it.

My favorite part was always regionals, because it feels the most like a sporting event. There’s an actual crowd, and it’s packed and really loud. It was just really fun [and] it felt like being on a team.

Being on the relay team helped a lot to motivate me for school, because every year we wanted certain splits that we wanted to hit in certain times. Swim, for me, is an individual sport, and a relay is the only team thing that you do. It was the time where I felt like other people were actually relying on me, and so I couldn’t wait.

I think part of the reason why I like the relay so much is it’s like all the exciting competitiveness that you like in a sport. The medley relay was my favorite, because UIL only does four by 50 instead of four by 100. It’s really fast [and] it doesn’t take much time either. So it’s fun, competitive,exciting, and the most popular event to watch. Everyone’s into it.”