Ethan Williams '24 Recruiting Profile

Swimming on the Belleville Beast Swim Team has been a rollercoaster for me.  I started swimming when I was 9 years old, and I have grown drastically as a swimmer and a person since then.  My early years of swimming were a struggle.  I have a younger brother, and he outperformed me in almost every event!  He broke an abundance of team records and qualified for 10-and-under Ontario Festivals times when he was only 9, while I watched from the sidelines.   I was proud of him, of course, but I questioned what I needed to change about myself to be up there at the big championship meets.  I chose to set goals for myself, and persevere through being the underdog.  I kept telling myself that waking up to go to before-school practices, pushing through dryland training, and not skipping out on any reps in a set even if I missed the pace time would pay off in the long run.

In the 2021-2022 season, I had a huge leap in my swim times.  For the first time, I qualified for Ontario Swimming Championships and Eastern Canadian Championships.  I even earned a bronze medal at the Summer Ontario Swimming Championships in the 200m backstroke!  I understand that my swimming career did not start out as polished as others, but I am prepared to make my future just as bright as anyone else.  My 2022-2023 season was complicated by me requiring abdominal surgery to remove my appendix and then a few months later, in April 2023, I got a severe respiratory illness (likely Covid) that took a long time time to recover from. These setbacks were tough for me physically and mentally but I am back now in the pool training even harder and I have been getting best times in the pool this 2023-2024 season.  My main goal for this season is to chase after Canadian Junior National times in the backstroke, breaststroke, and IM events.  I believe I have what it takes to compete at the collegiate level.  If you think there is something I need to do to improve my swim times, please let me know!