Collins Sainovich '18 Recruiting Profile

At the early age of three, I learned how to swim from my grandfather, who was a swim coach in South Atlanta.  This background gave me something to build off of when started swimming on a team in the summer when I was six years old. Already knowing all the strokes, I was advancing faster than all of the other kids my age on the team. Because of my success, I began year round swimming at the age of eight for Gwinnett Aquatics. After a successful year at Gwinnett Aquatics, my family moved, and so I then joined Swim Atlanta, an even more developed and renowned swim club. After a year there, Swim Atlanta hired a new head coach, Mary Tripp, and under her I made my first state cut, with eight more soon to follow. This instant success I had when I had finally had the right coach for me made me realize that swimming was something I was very serious about doing. I swam with Coach Mary until the start of the new school year in 2012 when I moved Swim Atlanta locations to further progress my times and my swimming. I really started to get competitive in state towards the end of my swimming career, with Mary, during which I had multiple top-ten finishes in state. With this to build off of, I headed to a new location to swim with Chris Davis Jr., who continued to help me with technique, but also taught me how to swim a smart race. After less than a year with him, I placed third overall in the 1650 (yards) and fourth overall in the 1000 (yards) at the 2013 ESSZ Age Group Sectional Championships. I swam with him until the spring of 2014. After coming back from spring break, I began practice with Scot Davis, my previous coach's brother, and Andy Griffin. Scot and Andy have led me to almost all top ten finishes at my last state championship in February. All of my coaches have been great in helping me balance my schedule; practice six days a week, church twice a week, daily schoolwork, and piano practice have taught me how much of a difference true effort, balance, and a good work ethic make. Thanks to my experience, I believe that I am ready to compete at a collegiate level, which has been one of my greatest goals since I started swimming.