I , I'm a swimmer here at UW Madison . Uh , some of the best advice I'd say I've been given from coaches or mentors is just to stay with , with the process , trust the process , uh , showing day in and day out , because when you stick , when you're consistent with stuff , you'll be better off than if you skip a day and , uh , just being consistent with , with your work with your school . Uh , well , overall , you'll , uh , do great with , uh , schoolwork and , uh , whether that's training in the weight room or even in the pool .
And I remember looking up to the older swimmers when I was a young young swimmer on a club team and I'm like , man , like if when I'm in this person's shoes like it's going to be so cool or whatever like that so being able to kind of be in in those shoes and and going back to um . Back home and and helping out the younger kids on on uh high school team or even club team like I know um some people have told me that they they kind of look up to me or whatever like that so that's that's one of the most meaningful things ever I think one piece of advice I'd I'd give anyone that literally is in any spot because I I was nowhere near getting fast enough to be able to get recruited freshman year . I'd say just stick with the process , stick with your training , do the right things , don't do stupid stuff and everything will , will work out for you if , if you do the right stuff , if you work hard in the weight weight room in the pool , uh , and definitely in the classroom because , um , the classroom is very important and I wouldn't have this opportunity at Madison if if I didn't really pursue my my efforts in the classroom , uh , also .
About two months ago I fractured my wrist and I um I was out swimming for 3 or so weeks and uh that was a big mental block for me because I just got to school and I really wanted to compete in in the meets and compete in practice but I was unable to um but then having the the staff here helped me through stuff um and then the coaches helping me like get get through um . What I need to with what I could do was was super helpful and I just , I just needed to trust that everything would be fine and and the thing that helped me the most was it was just the beginning of the season so I didn't need to worry about it too much and um I definitely wouldn't take the experience back for anything . Yeah , my recruitment process was definitely chaotic for me .
Back home and and helping out the younger kids on on uh high school team or even club team like I know um some people have told me that they they kind of look up to me or whatever like that so that's that's one of the most meaningful things ever I think one piece of advice I'd I'd give anyone that literally is in any spot because I I was nowhere near getting fast enough to be able to get recruited freshman year . I'd say just stick with the process , stick with your training , do the right things , don't do stupid stuff and everything will , will work out for you if , if you do the right stuff , if you work hard in the weight weight room in the pool , uh , and definitely in the classroom because , um , the classroom is very important and I wouldn't have this opportunity at Madison if if I didn't really pursue my my efforts in the classroom , uh , also . Hello , I'm Drew Gertofffner .
NIL opportunity , but I've seen a couple of the guys on our team and some of the girls . Post stuff on their uh socials and do brand deals and uh it's definitely inspiring to try and get get uh deals with different people or uh uh promote myself and and the team on on social media yeah for me to be seen as a role model that's that's a big thing to me because I have a lot of role models in my life um . And I remember looking up to the older swimmers when I was a young young swimmer on a club team and I'm like , man , like if when I'm in this person's shoes like it's going to be so cool or whatever like that so being able to kind of be in in those shoes and and going back to um .
