Jordan Bridgford '24 Recruiting Profile

My name is Jordan Bridgford and my penultimate goal is to swim with a collegiate swim team. I want to achieve this level of success in my sport so that I can challenge myself further and continue my journey through the world of swimming.

I have been swimming competitively ever since I was eight years old. However, it was when I joined the Hawaii Swim Club in 2019 that I developed a passion and dedication to the sport of swimming. The aspect of swimming I enjoy the most is the camaraderie between myself and my teammates. Being able to talk with my teammates between sets is one of the many reasons I look forward to practice every day. I also love encouraging my teammates to put forth their best in practice, especially when it's the last rep of the main set and everybody feels like they have nothing left to give. One set my teammates and I dread is three rounds of 4x200s on a descending interval. That last round is extremely daunting and sometimes we tell ourselves that the last interval is impossible. However, I know my teammates and myself, so I encourage everyone around me during these hard moments because I know we are all more capable than we think. I have found that even a simple “You got this!” can make a big difference. Persevering through those tough sets requires a strong mindset, and I pride myself on nurturing an environment where everyone believes in themselves so that they can perform their best.

Not only am I dedicated to my teammates, but I am also extremely dedicated towards my own personal growth through hard work. After my first experience with the high school state swimming and diving championships my sophomore year, I decided I would put in as much work as possible over the following summer so that I could push myself closer towards my dream of becoming a competitive collegiate athlete. I trained weights and maintained a strict sleep and nutrition schedule for an entire year. In the pool, I worked on my technique, focusing on my flipturns and underwaters, which are now the strongest aspects of my backstroke swims. On top of this rigorous swimming schedule, I made it a priority to also maintain my status as a 4.0 GPA student. Even when I faced a minor setback due to an issue with my shoulder, I kept training as hard as possible. For a while, I would find myself thinking that my shoulder injury would ruin the season I worked so hard for, but I stayed dedicated and I still made improvements by as much as a half-second in my 100 yard backstroke and fifteen seconds in my 200 yard backstroke. It would have been easy to use my shoulder as an excuse to throw in the towel for the season, but that is not the type of athlete that I am. Not only is swimming my passion, but I knew that I had a responsibility to my coach, my teammates, and myself to push through this obstacle both physically and mentally. This extreme dedication is what won me the MVP award for the high school varsity team in both my sophomore and junior year, which is awarded to the person who attends the most practices and competitions.

I am looking for the wonderful opportunity to swim in college so that I can continue to pursue my greatest passion. After I leave high school, I want to have made an impact on my teammates and my school as an athlete and a student. However, I want to continue to make an impact past high school and continue to find the camaraderie that swimming provides that can be found nowhere else.