How It Started
I started swimming in 7th grade. Before that, I played a bunch of different sports at the YMCA and did little league baseball for a few seasons. By the end of my last baseball season, I was pretty tired of my dad always telling me to go outside and practice, so I decided to try something different—swimming.
I ended up joining the St. Cloud Aquatics team, and honestly, it was one of the best decisions I made. I met some of my closest friends through that team. What I liked about swimming was that it's an individual sport—you're competing against yourself and the clock. That pushed me to work harder than I ever did in team sports.
The discipline I got from swimming carried over into everything else. I became a lifeguard at 16, got my Water Safety Instructor certification, taught kids and adults how to swim, and eventually became Head Lifeguard at Florida Poly. All of that started because I wanted to try something new in 7th grade.
These times don't really mean much now since I'm out of high school, but I'm still pretty proud of what I was able to accomplish. Swimming taught me that if you keep showing up and putting in the work, you'll get better. That applies to pretty much everything—coding, building stuff, whatever.