I didn't really have any idea going into . The recruiting process , what it would be like , how many people would reach out to me , whatever , so kind of on the first day or first week or so I was just bombarded with stuff and I , I definitely , uh . I thought it was some of the coolest moments of my life like having these schools reach out to you and and call you and get to talk to these people um that was pretty awesome for me and then going on the visits was .
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 . I didn't really have any idea going into .
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 .
It's like , man , like if I could be an athlete there , like , oh my God , like I would totally take up that opportunity and and being able to represent my home state , like going this weekend , going to Minnesota and knowing I'm going to swim for my home state against kind of our rival school , it's , that's pretty big for me . There's definitely levels to to the the training and just being around people that that are just so much faster . It , it really , it helps .
Yeah , I mean personally this is , uh , my first experience doing a . 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 .
