Swimmers Prepare to Take On the Collegiate Level
Many young students plan on competing at the collegiate level, but what happens when it's time to go to college?
Sports can be a big part of students’ current lives and even play a role in their future. Hayley Crosland ‘23 spends 12 hours in the swimming pool each week. Once a week, before her classmates have even woken up or her parents have left for work, she is in the pool at 5:45 am for practice. However, she doesn’t mind the early-hour practices because she enjoys spending time with her teammates.
Next year Crosland will be swimming at the collegiate level for Luther College in Decorah, IA. Going to college was already going to be a big change for Crosland, and losing the sport that she’d done for most of her life wasn’t a part of the plan.
“I’ve always wanted to swim in college just because I knew that I wouldn’t be ready to be done competing,” said Crosland.
According to Zoe Hiers ‘23 another aspect of competing at the collegiate level isn’t just continuing to be challenged, but doing it for the team aspect. Hiers is joining the swim team at Concordia College in St. Paul. Just knowing that there’s a supportive team willing to lift you up can make moving into a new situation a little easier.
“I’m looking forward to being part of a team atmosphere again,” said Hiers, “and just knowing that I’ll have a team that’s really supportive is going to be great and it calms some of the worries about making friends in a new place.”
For Crosland, making sure that she felt like she had a team that had her back was a very big deciding factor. She wanted to make sure that she fit in with the team and the coaching staff.
“I leaned towards Luther,” Crosland said, “because I enjoyed hanging out with the team a lot more than others. They seemed a lot more involved in getting to know me.”
According to Hiers, the memories made by having a good time with teammates last longer than the ones of winning a race or swimming at a meet.
“I loved the fun holiday practices we did,” Hiers said. “We always had fun sets to swim and we really grew as a team during those practices.”
Crosland and Hiers are both very excited to start a new chapter in their lives and are looking forward to making memories with their new teams.
