My sport of choice in high school was swimming. If you ever participated in competive swimming you understand that it is not a sport for the mentally weak or those who just want to have fun. Through swimming I learned that to truly immerse yourself in a sport you have to fall in love with it and it requires a deep routed commitment and determination if you really want to excel. There is nothing pretty about doing lap after lap, staring at a black line at the bottom of the pool. To do this and to do it well requires a level of grit that not everyone has the capacity for. Swimming also comes with a great deal of pressure. If you don’t do well in an individual race it’s all on you. To be successfully in swimming you must also take pride in every victory, every improvement, regardless how small it is. You must rejoice with every 10th or even 100th of a second that is shaved off of your time. For me, sport isn’t necessarily about winning or being the best. It’s about digging deep, believing in yourself and improving in the skills you are working on.