My experience swimming at College in the USA
First notion of College
When I was about 14 years old I watched a movie called American Pie 2 which for those of you who haven't seen it is basically about college. I remember thinking when I was watching it how much fun it looked, but I wasn't completely naive and knew movies could be deceptive. A couple of years later when I was swimming at national level in Australia I spoke to some people who had been to college in America on scholarships for swimming which effectively paid for their education and training. Given that nothing even remotely similar exists in Australia, I just sort of listened and thought wow that sounds fun. It just seemed like it was in a different planet and seemed impossible for me.
Combining University, Swimming and Work in Australia
Once I started university in Australia, I realised how difficult it was to swim at a high level and attend university full time while also maintaining some sort of income. The drop off rate in my home state of Victoria of swimmers between the ages of 16 and 18 is startling (probably around 95-97%) mainly due to the difficultly of combining the two after school finishes- in short many people quit because they see no possiblities in swimming unless they show signs of becoming Ian Thorpe or Michael Phelps. During my first degree in Australia (Sports Science) I trained about 7 times a week in the pool (each between 90 mins and 2 hours) and lifted weights about 3 times a week (each about one hour). I also worked 15 hours a week and had 20 contact hours for my university course. Add to this the study and homework time which was required each week and it made for a hectic schedule. There were times when I would leave home for morning training at 4.40 and would get back home until after 8 at night and once or twice I felt myself drifting off behind the wheel which was a bit scary. I had barely any time to relax and live life and looking back on it I don't know how I did it and still swam well.
Contemplating my future
At some point during my final year of university I realised that I would need to make a decision about my swimming future. I was 21 and felt I was not only too young but also enjoying the sport too much to stop once I finished university. I was presented with a dilema. I knew it would be possible for me to get into full time work at 21 and earn good money, however this would mean reducing my training to a more casual level, which to me meant giving up on my dream to reach the top level in Australia. I didn't want to give up on my dream and I knew full time work would always be waiting for me. Around this time one of my good friends came back from a year exchange program at a Califorian University where she trained with the swim team and highly recommended it. She was at a similar point in her career and was not enjoying training as much as before now being the only adult swimmer at her club. Listening to her stories made me really envious and got me thinking.
Dream begins to slip
I began looking at college swim team websites and trying to educate myself on the NCAA and how it worked. It seemed like an absolute minefield and made me feel like it was impossible to do this. I sent letters randomly to college programs, having no idea how good or bad the program was. Of course I started with all the famous ones I had seen in the movies (Stanford, University of Cal Berkley) but had no luck. Unfortunantely I wasn't THAT fast. I began to think that maybe I wasn't a good enough swimmer to get a scholarship to swim in college so I just kept working hard in the pool and emailing coaches. I got a few replies but nobody seemed to be able to answer whether or not I had eligibilty still left or not. I had nothing serious in the way of offers and began to let my dream of swimming college slip.
New possibilities
At some point later in the year I ran into the dad of a girl I used to date from my swimming club. His name is Noel and I had always gotten on well with him. I knew his daughter was at college in America at that time and began talking to him about it and mentioned I was interested in going myself but was unsure if I was still eligible. Luck would have it, that Noel at that very moment was in the process of starting a company which specifically helped Australian swimmers in their search to find an appropriate college. Noel told me to think about it and call him back in a few weeks if I was still interested. A few weeks later I called and had the first of many long conversations with Noel.
Eligibility?
After a few calls back and forth to make sure I was serious about the prospect of studying overseas, Noel called the NCAA to establish some idea of my eligibility. My situation was very unique as I was to find out. For those who don't know, you have four years of eligibilty to compete in college sports. When I heard this I began to lose hope again. However it turns out that you actually have five years to do your four years of competition, therefore you could compete for two years, not compete for one year (called a red-shirt) and then compete for two more years. In my case, even though I had never competed for my university (university and swimming are completely seperate at home) I had already started college over three years ago. Anyway long story short it was determined I had two years of eligibility left. Finally I knew it was possible!!!
Big step
I bit the bullet and signed the documents in order to become a client of Noels company, probably the biggest decision of my life so far. Although this didn't guarantee me a position in college it was a big first step. Next step was to get a relavant resume set up so prospective colleges knew the sort of guy I was and what sort of program I was looking for. As I already had a degree back home my main focus was the swimming as that was my main goal along with the experience of living in another country. Noel really knew what the colleges were looking for and helped me put together a fantastic resume complete with videos of me swimming and even a couple of pictures. Unfortunantely a lot of the top colleges either thought I wasn't what they needed or that I didn't have enough eligibility to really develop me.
The sorting process begins
I started to get interest and some offers from some very nice schools. The only issue was I had to consider the costs of being an international student, for example the fact that a return ticket to LA from Australia will cost around $1500 or more depending on luck. I knew i would fly back and forth a few times so the only way I could afford to go was if I got a 100% scholarship- no less. Noel assured me this was possible given my times in the pool. It was around this time I started speaking to the University of Missouri. They had a few guys who I spoke to and they all seemed super keen to get me there and help me out with whatever I needed. We chatted a few times and I started to like what I was hearing. Anyway it came around to April, the beginning of the main signing period for colleges, and it had been implied I would be receiving some sort of paperwork commiting to Mizzou. Man was I excited. I was looking at times trying to convert them as I had no idea about yards times. I was just waiting for that paperwork.
Mizzou opportunity goes down the toilet
The paperwork never came. I waited and waited and realised that the contact from Mizzou was growing more and more scarce. After a period of about a month where I sent various emails to the coaches I had spoken to and tried to call them numerous times I received an email which confirmed my growing fears.
"Hello Noel & Justin,
I truly apologize for the tardiness of this email. I wanted to get a solid stance on Justin's standing on admissions before I got back to the both of you. Unfortunately it doesn't look good. We've been told by numerous academic chairs that while Justin does have a degree....that degree does not have the varied class load that he would need in order to be admitted into their respective programs.....
Hopefully all of this makes sense. I'm pretty confident that our university is much stricter about this issue than a lot of others in the states, but Justin might run into this problem with other schools as well. We really wanted Justin to be a part of our swimming program and university and I'm sorry to finally give in to the fact that it's not going to happen. I truly and deeply apologize for wasting both you and Justin's precious time and I wish you well in the future. Please feel free to give me a call with any questions as I'd be glad to explain the situation out in greater detail if need be.
Take care"
So that was the end of that! In the mean time I had basically turned down other offers because I had felt pretty convinced by the coaches at Missouri that their offer was the real deal. I felt completely screwed over and was really disappointed. It wasn't the fact I had been turned down it was that it had taken them so long to tell me this that many other schools had all their money allocated to other swimmers. At this point I felt that it really wasn't meant to be.
The Search starts again
This meant that we were back to square one in the search. All the old options were re-contacted to see if any opportunities still existed. Most said no. I did receive two more positive replies though. They were from Texas Christian University (TCU) and Eastern Michigan University (EMU). Both were equally promising in terms of their offers and it seemed like the swimmers were close in times (although as I said I had no idea when it came to yards times). This was important to me as I really wanted to swim with a bunch of guys who would push me and be around my pace (or faster) which is something I thrived on in my home squad. The problem was that time was running short and both schools were well past their deadline for admissions. Both schools were looking for me to start in January rather than September which is the normal start of the school year in America. At a really crutial time in my decision making process TCU became a little shaky on their offer saying they could either have me for half the year at 100% or have another guy for the full year at 50%. This really made the choice easy and I was already leaning towards this decision anyway because I had talked a lot with the EMU head coach Peter Linn and felt comfortable with him after giving him a few quizes on coaching philosophy. So I commited verbally to EMU. The funny thing was that later in the day after giving my verbal commitment, TCU came back and re-offered what they had originally offered. It didn't matter. My mind was made.
Paper-work
Given my previous experience with Mizzou, I never really believed I was going until I got the paperwork from Eastern. Lucky for me, this time it came! After a year of searching I finally had something locked in. Turns out that the paperwork I received from Eastern was only the beginning of a paperwork avalanche which I believe is partly responsible for the worlds current de-forestation issues. The first thing I learnt about Americans, before I had even arrived in the country, is that they love paperwork- especially ones with official seals, you need a few of them to show your the real deal (absolutely no photo-copies or emails). So after two months of doing the paperwork dance everything was set to go. I was accepted to Eastern and everything was hunky-dory.
The day arrives!
I had never been to the US and was really pumped to see what it was like. So on the 2nd of January 2010, after a big night of packing and no sleep, after one last training session with my home squad, after all the hard goodbyes, I finally boarded my flight from Melbourne to Los Angeles filled with expectation.Let the Journey begin I thought. For the first time in my life I didn't know how life would be for the next few months, who I would meet, where I would live, who I would live with, all the basic things that become such a part of life that you don't even think about them. Also for the first time in my life I would be living on my own.
Arrival in the USA
For those who have never flown from Melbourne to Las Angeles, its one of the longest non-stop flights in the world (approx 15 hours even says so in the movie Inception). So after my 15 hour flight I had allowed nearly 4 hours to change to my domestic flight. We arrived an hour late, and the queues at LAX were enormous, as they almost always are, so I thanked my lucky stars when I walked onto my domestic flight to Detroit just as they were annoucing the final call. By now I was surrounded by americans and was laughing to myself thinking that I would be hearing this accent for the next two years. I got to see a bit of LA out the side window of the plane as we flew in and out and ticked that off my lifes to-do list. As we went on in the flight I heard the captain say that current weather in Detroit was 10 degrees. Not too shaby I thought, for the middle of winter. At one point I looked out the window and my stomach dropped. All I could see below was white! snow was everywhere! it soon clicked in my head that the Americans like to use measurements that only make sense to them like pounds, yards, miles, ounces and of course degrees fahrenheit. It turns out that 10 degrees is actually minus 12 everywhere else in the world. Bit of a difference considering I'd just left beautiful weather in the middle of the Australian summer where it was in the low 30's (celsius). After applying 4 layers just to walk off the plane I finally set foot in Michigan for the first time. Although the swim team was still on training camp, two guys who had graduated the year before had come to pick me up from the airport and I was going to stay with them for the first two nights until I could move into my new accomodation. We went for Buffalo Wild Wings for my first meal, and ive never seen so many TV's in one room in my life. I still can't hold a conversation in that place.
more to come
