Ali Follman is a 2016 graduate of American University in Washington, D.C. who grew up swimming for a YMCA team in New Jersey. Ali was a breaststroke, IM and butterfly specialist while studying journalism as her major, and marketing and psychology as her minors.
We’re all lucky enough to join college swimming under different circumstances, with different experiences and different goals. Two things that bring us together are that we want to get better and we want to be part of something greater than ourselves in a sport so individualized. College swimming can be the most rewarding fraternity, sorority, family and community combined that you will join. Most of all, it is the experience that you make it: everything you put into your body, mind and training will reflect in the pool.
The people you surround yourself with and the amount you expand from swimming will greatly impact your well-being. Having a good relationship with your coach will make your four years worth every awfully hard training day. I’m telling you this because I’ve made it through to the other side and feel that my experience swimming for all these years molded me into who I am. I also wish I had known a few things before I got here.
A little bit about me: I grew up swimming in northern New Jersey for a YMCA team and went to a high school without a swim team. I was recruited to American University in Washington, D.C., a Division I school that lacked scholarships for swimming. I swam breaststroke, IM and butterfly. I studied journalism as my major, and marketing and psychology as my minors. I held a few internships in D.C. and a few student leadership positions.
American is in the Patriot League, so we faced powerhouse teams like Army West Point and the Naval Academy, as well as other funded programs like Boston University and Bucknell. I never went to NCAAs and had few individual victories on the grand Patriot League stage, but what I’ve taken from my four years goes way beyond medals and recognition.
As college freshmen are preparing for the thrill and anxiety of moving to a new place for college while also mentally preparing for the brutality of college swimming, here are some tips and some things I wish I had known.
1. Don’t let swimming be the only thing on your résumé.
It might not seem important as a freshman, but building your experiences early on in college is a huge advantage. Go to activity fairs, meet people in your classes and scout out communities on campus where you can grow besides your muscles and your major. For me, joining the student media community really changed my perspective on my university because I met people who were interested in writing and media, like myself, and gained leadership roles that stand out on my résumé. Once I graduated from college I took my D I swimming description from the top of my résumé to the bottom. To potential employers, this is not the most important facet about you.
2. Hang out with people who bring you up.
Teammates are your family. You will spend so many hours with them each day so it is smart to branch out. By joining clubs and making friends off of the team, you will have even greater support systems to turn to. For example, when I came back from conferences one year, a friend was waiting on the quad to give me flowers because I took off some time from my 200 breaststroke, one I had been at a plateau for years. Being a student athlete adds a level of commitment and burden, so it’s important to be surrounded by positive, healthy people who will support your sometimes-hectic training schedule and lifestyle.
3. Use your resources.
I was lucky enough to have an amazing support system at AU called “The Nest”, for our mascot of an eagle, where athletic advisors could give us the academic support we needed. They got us tutors, proctored tests when we were traveling to competitions, reviewed résumés and hooked us up with AU athletics alumni in our career fields. They even taught us skills courses each year while in athletics that encompassed freshmen skills, finance, leadership, and real world etiquette for seniors.
4. Make your own training choices.
Depending on where you go to school and who your coach is, you will discover their unique coaching style. For my coach, Mark Davin, he put emphasis on individualized work, allowing for swimmers to choose sets, distances and sometimes intervals. He would always say something like, “you’re in college, figure it out.” This helped swimmers who were always told what to do figure out that swimming is individual, and the more you customize your training, the better your results will be.
5. It’s just swimming.
No matter what happens throughout your college swimming career, maybe an injury or a missed time cut by a few tenths, remember it’s just swimming. Your parents will likely not be at every meet (mine came twice a year), and you will be swimming for your own goals and pride. Don’t do it for your coach or anyone else but you. My whole team swam because we loved the sport, not for a free college education. And you will see, your team size may whittle down throughout the years because people’s passions change and so do circumstances. So don’t be too hard on yourself, learn from every race, and take your coach’s advice with a grain of salt. You know your body and mind, and if they’re in alignment, your races will be better than you ever hoped.
I hope this advice helped you, as you will soon embark on an experience that will hopefully change your life. You will come out of it stronger, smarter and knowledgeable of so much more than just flawless technique. Give it all you’ve got, because it goes by painfully slow at 6 AM but extremely quick when you’re smiling.