Why I chose Swimming

Why swimming? We know student-athletes love their sport and are talented, but we often don't know why. We have asked that question, and Katie Ellett, Tara Enneking and Noah Wilkins tell us why they chose their sport.
 
Why Swimming
 
Katie Ellett – Jr. – Rockville, Md.
I started swimming competitively when I was five years old at a local neighborhood pool on the swim team that my grandmother started. Being a part of the community, developing friends I still consider family and competing in a fun, team-oriented environment are what helped develop my passion for swimming. 
 
I was inspired to continue swimming in high school and college because it became a part of my identity. Swimming is a huge time commitment and requires an immense amount of hard work and dedication. Those are things that may push some people away from the sport, but for me, swimming is thrilling and all the sacrifices are worth it. Swimming is such a community and it is great being able to be surrounded with people who share the same interests and dedication. It's important to me to be able to compete in something I love, while having fun. 
 
Competing as a collegiate athlete is one of the best decisions I have made. I love setting goals, both team goals and personal goals, working toward them and achieving them. I have balanced academics and swimming my entire school career, so it comes naturally to me. I love the camaraderie of being on a team, working hard as a team, competing as a team and creating great memories and friendships that I will carry with me beyond my college experience.   
 
Tara Enneking – Fr. – Forest, Va.
Growing up I played a lot of sports, but I always was a swimmer. I come from a family of athletes. For starters, we're all over six foot, so we have those athletic genes. My dad went to Ohio State and was on the rowing team, my mom played tennis, my sister played three sports in high school and she was on the club water polo team at James Madison. For me it was always a question of what sport am I going to do. 
 
Swimming started when I was very young. My parents put me in swimming when I was five and I started on the swim team. I kept swimming but I also started playing other sports. I played basketball and soccer, and I got serious about lacrosse until eighth grade. All through that I was still swimming. I knew swimming was something special to me. I still tried the other sports because I like to try new things. My freshman year of high school was a hard decision for me. I had to realize there was a change I need to make if I want to be very good at one sport. I knew swimming was what I wanted to do, so even though I loved all the other sports, I decided to focus on swimming and that was probably the best decision I could have made. From then on, I kept getting better and better and I was learning more and falling in love with the sport even more. That's one of the best decisions I ever made because I just love the sport.
 
 
Noah Wilkins – Jr. – New Orleans, La.
At the age of 6, my parents registered me for the local the summer league swim team, which at the time was more for learning how to swim and mingling with friends than truly competing against others. At that age, telling a young child to swim a lap as fast as possible to beat other young children can be a difficult task to understand. However, as the years progressed, a competitive nature began to grow. The need to win and the eagerness to do whatever possible to achieve that feat was apparent as I reached high school. 
 
Having played soccer for the same duration of time and seeing that there was a gap between good and great, I was put into a position to choose between two sports that I was relatively good at. Eventually, the pursuit of perfection and faster times captured me into swimming, and subsequently, that black line at the bottom of the pool shaped my life into something extraordinary. It has shaped my lifestyle, my friends, and even my future career. 
 
Swimming is not an easy sport by any means, and it takes someone with the desire to improve, desire to make a statement and the desire to win at any cost. Swimmers are the most competitive athletes that I know (even the warmup becomes a race sometimes), but without this intrinsic competitive nature, I would not be where I am today.