Nik Beeney '23 Recruiting Profile

I began swimming when I was 8 years old at Cedar Creek Swim and Racket, a local summer league team. After swimming there for 1 year I decided to move to Summit Swimming a club team to up my abilities in swimming. I naturally excelled just like I did at my summer league team making state my first year and getting moved through the ranks of the team. I soon noticed a problem with myself and the coaches view on me, as my friends got moved into the more advanced groups I was stuck in the same group with no level of real ability to improve. Even though I was doing very well at or meets in practice is where I lacked the skill and drive for the sport. Throughout my first 4 years at Summit I made state constantly and was improving steadily, but when I turned 12 I hit a roadblock in my consistency. I would no longer improve as much as I was before and I barley made state that year, in the 50 free I could not break 30 and I became frustrated with myself and so did my parents. When I went into my 8th-grade year I decided to take a break from swim and try football. After a bad football season for me, I went back to swim but was meet by the same dilemma as before. I was looking forward to high school swim and sports in general and when registration for high school sports came along I tried cross country and didn’t go back to Summit. I had fun there but swimming was still my passion and I wanted to excel at it, and after tryouts, it was looking to be a fun season. I dropped more time than I ever had before going from a 29 50 free to a 25 over the course of the season, but even though I was dropping time at meets I was not pushing myself in practice and reverting back to the bad habits I had at Summit. I was afraid of my coaches were disappointed in me for not doing as well as I could, but halfway through the season I was playing around in practice and my coach pulled me aside and gave me a good talk about hard work and what he and our head coach’s expectations for me in the future. As I progress I hope to be presented with those same situations where I have to work to do what’s best for me and my sport.