Tayla Liddle '21 Recruiting Profile

Hello, 

I have always had a passion to keep swimming. This passion has brought me to many accomplishments today. When I was 3 years old I was put into the sport, I didn't really have the option whether I had wanted to or not. My mom put my siblings and me into the sport because she had was afraid of water when she was a kid. She had never realized what she was actually getting us or herself into. She first put my sister into it at age 5 and a year later she had decided to start me. She never thought we would compete much she just wanted us to be able to swim. After a couple years of swimming, we started competing. My mom had figured we would get tired of it and soon enough quit swimming competitively. I had always told her I wanted to keep competing. We were also ski racers at the time and one day her and my father told us we had to choose between the two and that we couldn't afford to do both anymore. We all decided to keep swimming competitively over ski race. To this day I am still glad I had made that decision. My sister is also glad she made that decision. My sister and I competed against each other and we pushed each other. She and some teammates on the Idaho Falls Swim Team convinced me to try harder. There were people out there that put us down and told us we would never go anywhere with this swimming career, but we didn't listen to them. About 2 years ago my coach from the Idaho Falls Swim Team retired, which was extremely hard for my teammates and me. We ended up with a coach that we didn't attach to as well. He eventually left us and we switched over to Voltage Aquatics, which I believe has helped with my swimming career. To this day I still miss my first coach. This past high school year my team Idaho Falls High School had believed we were able to win another state title, the first official Idaho State High School Swimming title. We trained extremely hard throughout the season believing we could achieve what we had wanted. There were doubters especially since we had lost first by 2 points the previous year. We went to state with what we had wanted, we went out there and gave it all we had. At the end of finals, they were calling out awards all the girls had stood together in a huddle as we waited for them to announce the winner. We heard 3rd place then all of a sudden we heard another team called for 2nd place, at that time we knew we had accomplished what we had wanted. To this day I am glad I didn't listen to those doubters that said we couldn't do it. I swim because it truly gives me the heart and love I need. I go to the pool every day and tell myself why I am there, to truly have fun and to be a role model for not only my little brother but others around me. I truly believe you can do anything.