Coming from a family of swimmers, I was highly anticipating the start of high school swimming. After my brother did phenomenal his last high school season, I was overjoyed to be continuing his legacy; however, things didn’t go as planned. The week before tryouts my grandmother passed away and I ended up missing majority of tryouts and the first couple days of school. When I got back I learned the assistant coach, who was also my summer league coach for a couple of years, passed away as well. The team was devastated which lead to a harsh and unfair season. Things were bad but it seemed to get worse when my beloved club coach moved two hours away, and even then, life kept throwing merciless punches my way. At the end of the high school season, our head coach resigned, leaving us lost during our off season.
During this stressful season, I was able to work through the emotional upheaval by concentrating on my training, which lead to personal best times and also earning my first varsity letter freshman year.