Abby Kirtland '20 Recruiting Profile

    The first thing that I think of as an influential moment in my life is when I did not make the state finals cut as a freshman. I would have loved to be able to compete in that meet, some of my friends on my team did and they were so excited. I have made state qualifiers for all of my high school career and then made finals my sophomore year and junior year. That moment taught me that as long as I keep working hard enough I will make it to that meet and be able to help my team bring home a state title. I first became interested in swimming when I was watching the olympics one year and I saw Missy Franklyn swim the 100 backstroke, and I was just in awe. 

    Something that I have learned about myself through swimming is that failure just makes me work harder. The best lessons that I have learned have been through failure, I have always succeeded when no one expected me to as well as when they have. My academic goals for high school were to make it through with a 3.5 GPA and for college I would like to graduate with a double major between criminal justice and finance. Some obstacles that I have had to overcome is that I started swimming late. I hadn't started until I was around 11 years old so I had to work really hard to try and make up for the years that a lot of other swimmers had that I didn't. A unique characteristic that I have is that I always try to have some fun with what I am doing. Wether it was making jokes during practice or making myself laugh while I'm taking a test.