Personal Statement
My name is Roger Woods and I love competitive swimming! I am excited about the prospect of being on a college swim team. I wake up every day at 5 am for swim practice and then go back again after school. I try my hardest in school. My parents are supportive with high academic expectations for me and my 4 siblings. I take difficult courses – AP Physics is tough for me this year! It is a challenge to balance swimming with academics, but that has never discouraged me from giving 100%. My personal integrity revolves around the ideals I internalized on my path to becoming an Eagle Scout. I am diligent in making sure I am trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, clean and cheerful. I always give my best, both at the pool and in other endeavors. I am constantly aiming to improve. I want my competitors to do their best, but I also want my best to be better than theirs!
I joined the Vista Ridge High School swim team my freshman year and realized how much I love swimming and racing. My sophomore year I decided to take swimming to the next level and joined the Cedar Park Swimming club team. The extra training helped and I made it to the Texas 4A State Championships. I got 1st place in the 50 Free consolation finals and swam my personal best at the time.
Almost immediately following my exciting experience at State and the end of my high school season, I found myself out of the water. The club team pool had leaks and pump problems. Two weeks turned into over 2 months of repairs and no practice. It was so frustrating to me to not be in the water! I was able to find off-times to swim laps at my local YMCA family pool, but it wasn’t the same. Then I had an accident during dryland which kept me out of the water for another 6 weeks. I had ended up with wood inside my hand, followed by hand surgery a few weeks later to remove more hidden wood fragments. As soon as school was out, my family moved to Idaho Falls. Not training for three months combined with the altitude really hit me. A few weeks later I went to SRS 2014 Summer Champs and was unhappy with my times. It was time to really work hard to get strong and fast.
I have to say, high school swimming in Idaho is a lot different than in Texas. Swimming isn’t a sanctioned sport in Idaho. I hope that gets changed. It is considered a school club and has a 2 month-long season. I still trained with my new club, Voltage Aquatics, each morning and afternoon, but swam in the high school meets on Saturdays. A big bonus was our high school was able to put together a great relay team.
The Idaho State meet in November 2014 was a fantastic experience for me and my Hillcrest HS relay team. My diligence and hard work was starting to pay off. I swam my personal best in the 50 free in Prelims – a 21.04. I was able to repeat it again in finals and took home a silver medal. What was really awesome was breaking the State record and taking home the gold for the 100 free with a 45.92. Our relay team pushed and got our best times ever and took home a silver and a bronze. We should all be together again for our Senior year and we want to own those relays at State next year!
I volunteer as one of the Junior High club coaches (their season is 2 months, too). It is great to see the kids’ improvement in their strokes and coming off the blocks. It has been hard for me to find the time to work a typical teenager job. Fortunately, I just got hired to coach one of the city’s youth teams a couple nights a week. No extra commuting because I am already at the pool!
I will be swimming at the CHAT invite in Cottonwood, Utah June 18-20, 2015.
