Nicolas Louis '23 Recruiting Profile

One conversation with me and you will realize that I am not just an ordinary young man of African and Haitian descent. My mom and dad put a lot of work and time into molding me into who I am today. Both parents were strict, and demanding and never allowed me to make excuses. “You fall, you get up and you try again. Learn from your mistake, fix it and get back in the game” and now it is my inspiration to get through academics, a game, or just everyday challenges in life.

When I was around 11 years old, I had to make a difficult decision to choose one of my three favorite sports - football, basketball, and swimming.  I needed to focus on one sport for two main reasons. First, I can allocate my time between that sport and my academic work. Second, I wanted to master one sport, become very good at it and be able to compete in that sport in high school, so I chose to swim. At 11 years old, I woke up by 6 am and was out of the house with my mom to catch a bus to get to school by 7 am. I left school at 3:30 pm to catch two buses to go swimming at the Boys Club of New York-Abbe. I did this for three years. Why?

I loved playing football and basketball, and my mother advised me that about 74% of the NBA are African Americans and 50% of the NFL are African-Americans. She told me basketball is the number one sport with the most injuries, and in football, 51% of injuries occur during training. A staggering 64% of African American children as compared to Caucasian children have any swimming ability. Only 1.5% of black swimmers are registered with USA Swimming. As early as the 1960s, by custom and by law, Black residents were denied the use of the municipal public pools. The pools were permanently closed or shut down or drained and refilled if a black person’s body touched the water. Imagine that! My mom posed an important question to me back then. Why not pick a sport that you can inspire other younger boys and girls who look like you to dare to play that sport? I thought to myself, I love three sports --basketball, football, and swimming. Although I was a frequent swimmer at the Boys Club of New York (BCNY) - Abbe, I never considered swimming beyond recreational purposes.

Once I began to think about swimming as a potential sport that I could master and participate in competitively, I started attending a learning-to-swim program and learned the basic strokes in a little more than a week. My mom was not even aware that I had chosen to do swimming over basketball and football. After I learned all the strokes I stayed after the learn to swim program finished and  I tried out with the BCNY-Abbe Swim team and made it.  Swim practice was nothing like I had imagined. They were brutal emotionally, mentally, and physically. The aches and pains were constant, and I often felt nauseous or cramps hitting me when I least expected them. I remember looking through my foggy goggles and looking down at the cracked tiles through the turquoise water.  However, over time I grew to love the grind, the swimming culture, the inside jokes only swimmers knew, and the comradery and encouragement from my teammates and coaches.  Not to mention the praises from my teammates and the coach and acknowledgment of my hard work regardless of my speed or placement in an event.