“I have been swimming for MOST since I moved to Omaha when I was five years old, and it never crossed my mind that I would one day be a college athlete. During my first two years of high school, swimming in college seemed like a pipe dream too hard to achieve for someone like myself. I had swam in the state meet the past two years and had placed highly, but I always thought of college swimming as a new level of commitment that I wasn't sure I would be able to compete on. My junior year came, and I realized that I had some important college decisions to start thinking about. I knew I wanted to be in a large urban center on the East Coast at a school that was selective and had a law school. As I began to research various schools, I realized that the average person leaving their senior year in undergrad is about $50,000 in debt; something that I was not interested in having. This is what originated my interest in college swimming.

After state my junior year, I limited my schools down to ones that had swimming programs that I would be competitive in and stood a good chance at getting some scholarship money. I e-mailed the coaches of St. Peters College in Jersey City, NJ, Howard University in Washington, D.C., Fordham University in New York City, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and University of Chicago in Chicago with a short summary of who I was and my times. All of the coaches seemed very interested and wanted to continue communication. My parents and I planned a road trip to the East Coast to visit the schools and talk to the coaches. After visiting the schools, I limited my choices down to Howard and Fordham because those were the two schools that had the programs of study that I am interested in and also offered a competitive swimming program that could allow me to earn scholarship money. In September, I went on an official visits to Fordham and Howard; where I stayed with the teams in their dorms, observed their practices, and lived the life of a college student for a weekend. Unlike my family and my visit in the summer, these were paid for by the school and monitored by the NCAA. After analyzing my experiences on the two trips, weighing the pros and cons of the schools, and making some tough choices, I decided to sign early with Howard University. I was offered an athletic and academic scholarship to the university, making my choice that much more rewarding.

In the fall, I will be rooming with one or two other freshman swimmers with a practice schedule similar to that which high school swimmers have. I strongly encourage those who are be unsure about swimming in college to explore the possibility. Not only is swimming paying for my school, it is going to be a great way to get involved and meet new people. It is comforting to know that my first day away from home, I will already have a family similar to the one that we MOST swimmers have. While this process was a long one, the end result was well worth the time and effort and is something that all serious athletes should take into consideration.”