Reilly Byron '24 Recruiting Profile

Hello! My name is Reilly Byron, and I am a Junior at McHenry Community High School in McHenry, Illinois. I first started competitive swimming at the age of eight when I joined the McHenry Marlins Aquatic Club. I swam for MMAC for 8 years before switching to Rise Aquatics during the 2022 winter season. In addition, during the high school girls swim season, I swim for the McHenry Warriors Varsity Team. Growing up with the sport of swimming has offered me many opportunities to learn valuable life lessons and characteristics that are important as both a teammate and as a person in general. One of the most important opportunities I experienced was when I was able to compete at the NCSA Age Group Championships as part of a relay team for three consecutive years. Attending the NCSA Championships was a significant event in my swim career. I learned the importance of teamwork and sportsmanship while getting the opportunity to become close friends with my relay teammates. Furthermore, I learned that having fun while working hard is when I find success and enjoy the sport the most. 

In my many years of swimming, I have also learned that hard work and perseverance is crucial in order to become the best swimmer I can be. I fully learned this when I fell into a “slump” after the pandemic. Before quarantine I had swam an incredible season, I made individual NCSA Age Group Championship cuts for the very first time, and I was overall getting new best times left and right. However, with such a long break from practices, practicing on my own, and an even longer break from meets, once quarantine was over and things were starting to return to normal, I found myself unable to achieve the times I was once able to. It took a lot of time, effort, and motivation to get myself back to where I was before the pandemic; I often felt the desire to just give up or not work as hard as I should and could. A quote my coach often uses is "mind over matter" which soon became my favorite quote. It reminds me that the pain and the feeling that I want to give up is just a mental barrier and the only way to get stronger is to keep pushing through the difficulty. I began to push myself harder in practice and I focused harder on my stroke and technique. In addition, I started weightlifting and working out in the gym to become even stronger in general. It took a while, but I started improving my times and finally got out of the "slump" the pandemic put me in. Since then, I have qualified for IHSA Sectionals for three consecutive years, received MVP for my high school team as a Junior, placed in the top 30 for the 200 Breaststroke at the Illinois Senior Championships, and much more.

In the past few years I was beginning to feel that club swim was beginning to become more of a chore for me. After being on the same team for over eight years, many of my closest friends had graduated or left the team leaving me the only high school swimmer in my practice group. Being the only swimmer in my age group made practices less enjoyable and more hard to get through everyday. I realized that I needed to join a team that would challenge me, yet allow me to have a supportive peer group. I ended up switching to Rise Aquatics in Libertyville, Illinois. I was extremely nervous at first.  I was worried I would miss my old team too much and I wasn’t sure if I would feel like I belonged on this new team. I wasn’t sure if switching was truly a good idea, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep up with all the other fast swimmers on the team. One day I read a quote at my gym that said “great things don’t come from comfort zones”. That quote resonated with me. I realized that I wasn’t going to become a better swimmer by holding back and rethinking a decision I knew deep down was the best for me. I have now been on Rise since December and I truly believe that switching teams, while a hard decision, was the right choice for me. I am now driven to choose a college where I will be able to jump out of my comfort zone once again, and achieve great things academically and athletically.