Personal Statement
“If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you” . ~ Fred DeVito
My first experience in the water at the age of 1 was filled with fear and as I am told, a lot of tears. I hated it. Fast forward to today, and it is hard to imagine that my fear back then would turn into one of my greatest passions and would change me and challenge me everyday of my life. My life would forever be shaped by the world of competitive swimming and it would teach me three of the most important lessons I apply to my life everyday: Responsibility, Dedication, and Mental Toughness.
“The price of greatness is responsibility” . ~Winston Churchill
Responsibility, is defined as “the opportunity or ability to act and make decisions independently; it is the act of being accountable”. But, what does responsibility really mean when we consider it in our own lives? For me, when you are training to become an elite athlete you become responsible to everyone around you including yourself. It becomes one of the hallmarks of success, in and out of the pool. It means knowing you have pushed yourself to the limit to achieve each goal you set for yourself.
When I was 12, I wanted nothing more than to break the USA Swimming, Illinois State record in the 50 backstroke. My last chance came at the National Central Zone Championships in Indianapolis, in the summer of 2012. I would age up the following month and the opportunity would be lost forever. As I went off the blocks, in my last individual 50 backstroke race, I was determined to achieve success. I swam harder then I could even have imagined, leaving nothing to chance. As I reached out and touch the wall at the finish of the race, I looked up at the score board. I had failed to break the record by .02 seconds. I was heart-broken, but I knew I could do it. I knew I could break this record. The opportunity to try one more time came the very next day. At Central Zone meets each state selects the best coaches in their state to attend Zones and coach the athletes who have made the Zone cuts. This was Team Illinois advantage, we had coaches who believed in us, believed in me. Coaches who would give me my final opportunity to break the 50 backstroke record. The last race of the meet, my very last chance to break the record came in the 200 medley relay. A medley relay is made up of four swimmers, each swimming one 50 meter leg of the race, each swimming a different stroke in a pre-arranged order. My coaches undaunted by my defeat only 24 hours earlier choose me to swim the backstroke leg of this race. The one rule in this event is only the first swimmer is allowed to count their time as an individual event. Since the backstroke is the first leg of the race, it meant that if I broke the record it would count. Once again I would push myself harder then I ever knew I could. I drove hard into the wall to finish my leg of the relay, I hit the wall, looked up at my time and there it was, a new Illinois State record. All because I knew I had a responsibility to the coaches that believed in me and a responsibility to myself to do whatever it took to achieve this goal. In the end, I credit my coaches who believed in me. My teammates who supported me and prayed with me and my determination to win.
“Dreams and dedication are a powerful combination ~ William Longgood
I would come to further understand the meaning of responsibility and dedication years later in my swim career. At the end of the first semester of my Sophomore year at Alleman High School, I made the extraordinarily difficult decision to transferred schools. I left behind a school I loved, teachers and administrators I admired and great friends. It was a school, however without a pool, without a swim coach and without a swim team.
It was through the dedication of the Alleman Athletic Director and my private swim coach that I was able to compete and represent Alleman at the Illinois high school Sectional level my Freshman and Sophomore year. I became the first Alleman High School Sectional Champion in the schools history. My dedication to the school and everything they had done to allow me to swim at the high school level and contribute to my swimming success was in my heart. It was a great disappointment when the school explained after my Sophomore swim season that the reality of a high school team would not be possible. Knowing that continuing to train alone without a team, constantly having to look for open pool space would and had caused my momentum to slow. I had a decision to make. I could stay and continue to try to push myself, competing only at the Sectional and State level for the school or I could transfer. In the end and after great thought and consideration, I made the difficult decision to change schools. The day I sat in front of my Principle, a man I admired and respected to tell him I was leaving Alleman High School is a day I won’t soon forget. His dedication and commitment to me and my success never wavered. His last words to me were “Alleman will always be your home”.
Changing school mid year is challenging for anyone but it is a requirement by the Iowa high school association that all athletes must do a “90 day sit” before participating in sports. A “90 day sit” meaning exactly what it says, no participation or “sitting out of sports” for 90 days. Starting that January, at the return from winter break, I settled into my spring semester of sophomore year at a new high school, looking forward to being a part of what I thought was an elite varsity high school girls swim team. It turned out be anything but.
At the start of the fall sports swim season my Junior year trouble began. Within the first two months of the girls high school swim season most of our varsity swimmers had walked off the team. The walkout was due in part to a disagreement with our new head coach. Over those first few months I had been asked several times to walk out with the other girls but I knew I had a responsibility to the school who had allowed me to come and swim, the coach who took on the girls high school swim team at the last minute, when the girls swim coach left a week before the season started, to my parents who had made the financial sacrifice to pay private tuition to a public school so I could swim and to myself. I am not a quitter. Knowing that you learn something from every coach, every teacher, every mentor you encounter I dug in, taking advantage of my coaches new way of thinking and training. I never questioned his approach, and was determined to prove to those who had walked out, that this coach could help us all achieve success. And he did.
From the time I began swimming, I wanted to break every pool record I could. The hardest being a 20 year standing record in the 100 backstroke at the UT High School Pool. That year we were scheduled to swim at the UT Invitational in October. By this time the disagreement between our coach and the varsity swimmers had come to a head. The environment at the meet was tense but I was laser-focused on that record. The competition was tough and I went into the race evenly matched with another swimmer. I knew I would have to fight to beat her and fight even harder to break the pool record. I will never forget the feeling of disbelief, of shock, of pure joy as the tears ran down my face. The year I took a chance, changed schools, taking on a new team, a new coach and a new philosophy, I hit the wall to finish the 100 backstroke and realized I had not only beat my main competitor by .03 seconds but I had just smashed a 20 year old record. All it took was a leap of faith, trust in a new way of thinking and confidence to go after what you want.
When I think about dedication and what it has meant in my life; I see it as commitment to those around you, to your chosen path in life. It is what has kept me in this sport for the past 9 years. It is what forces me up at 4:45 in the morning and its what drags me to 9 practices a week, swimming 50,000 yard in 6 days. Dedication has taught me that you can’t achieve your goals without a conscious commitment. My determination to accomplish the goals I set for myself meant making difficult decisions, sacrificing my personal life and remaining dedicated to being the best athlete and student I could be. Along with my own personal dedication was my families dedication to me. My family has always been fully committed to my success both academically and athletically. Whatever goal I set out for myself, my family is always by my side, helping me anyway they can to accomplish my goals. Waking up at 4:45AM to drive me to practice, finding the best coaches to train under, cheering me on during my races and being honest with me when I wasn’t giving 100%. They support me and encourage me in every aspect of my life. I wouldn't be the person I am today without them.
“Its hard to beat a person who never gives up” ~Babe Ruth
Mental Toughness is a measure of an individuals resilience and confidence that leads them to success. Throughout all my years of swimming, this is the lesson I had to learn the hard way, that you cannot be afraid to hurt and you cannot give up when things get hard. When I am struggling to write an English paper or struggling to finish a really difficult sprint set, I look for my mental toughness to keep me going.
My inspiration for mental toughness came from my coaches and teammates down in Bloomington. I joined the Waves during a time of great uncertainty in my life. My coach at the time had decided to quite coaching due to the birth of his first child and my mom’s company was considering transferring her to central Illinois. I was young and afraid that all of my hard work had been in vain, that my swim career might actually end. But, my mom had an idea, if we had to move to central Illinois we might as well move to be with the best swim coach in the state, Charles Yourd of the Bloomington Waves. Coach Yourd was tough, he set high standards for everyone and expected everyone to work hard, support one another, be responsible to one another, be dedicated to the training and be mentally tough to face any challenge. The Waves is a team that taught me how to keep my head on straight; made me realize that not every race defines me as a swimmer and that every moment in my life won’t define me as a person, unless I choose to let it. Even though I may not have liked the things my coaches had to say and didn’t like their brutal honesty at times, it taught me how to be tough, how to be mentally and physically resilient. With my teammates pushing me and supporting me, I learned that they would always have my back no matter how I did in a race and I would have theirs. We were a family and we still are to this day. Even though I had to leave the Waves, my mom’s transfer never came to fruition. I hold dear the principles, the people and the practices I learned. Life lessons, valuable lessons.
It may sound like my whole life is based around the sport of swimming and thats because it is. It is my life, my everything. This sport has shaped me into the person I am today, and taught some of the most valuable skills I’ll be able to use throughout my life.
Faith, responsibility, determination and mental toughness are what create opportunities. I contribute my success in life to these principles. I realize that I can only accomplish my goals through the effort I put forth and that I am the only person to blame when things don’t go the way I expect. I have learned that I not only have a responsibility to myself, I also have a responsibility to the people around me including my family, my coaches, my teachers, my team, my friends, my school and my community.
My name is Aviana Zahara and I am a competitive student-athlete.
