- 2018 Highlights
Personal Statement
I currently swim year-round, swimming for the Coastal Aquatics Club and on my high school team and would love to further my swimming career especially at a college level. I would like to get a Master's degree or higher in Architecture and maybe a Minor in Digital Design. I'll be a great candidate for your team and/or school because I'm a strong swimmer in every stroke, a joyful funny young man, I am a disciplined; never-quit kind of athlete who is willing to do what it takes for myself and my teammates so we can be the best we can be both in and out of the pool.
When I was born I was diagnosed with Pectus Excavatum; which simply means as your body grows while the middle of your chest grows back and creates and caved in/ crater in your chest creating asthma, and other causes that could lead to death. When my parents knew this, the doctors gave us a choice to have the Nuss Procedure; to put a bar in my chest for 3 years to help pop it back out to normal, and to have open heart surgery at 8 years old or wait until I turn 12 to slide it through my rib cage and just to leave scars near my ribs. While the choices where rough I was also limited until I 21 or my chest will cave so far in, it will press all my organs together and I would die from it.
Fast forward to when I was 12 years old, they put me up for the new type of Nuss Precediure down at MUSC, Charleston and after everything, they only limited me to non-contact sports so it would lessen the chance of the bar moving and cause no change; and for me, that was a tough choice for me because I was a boy and played mostly all contact sports. In the choices there was swimming, and I thought it would be great for the summer coming up and I will still stay active then I would go back to all the other sports I was usually playing year-round. During these 3 years, I made high school states and received a varsity letter around my 1st year; 2nd year, joined CAC club team and won states in that and kept making records in both teams for each year. When I turned 16 I got the bar removed and recovered for it to get back into the water, at that time I was training for states and nationals and pushed through the pain but kept it was too much and couldn't risk it for those types of meets so we scheduled surgery for removal. Still to this day, I train and with the highest level of my teams and hope to get better and better as the years come.
