Michelle Paddon-Jones '21 Recruiting Profile

Thank you for viewing my profile. I am excited to move forward into the next part of my life. I love to learn and read and try to challenge myself by taking vigorous classes and aim to succeed in all of them. Currently I am undecided on majors and career choices but always looking for new interests. While I cannot imagine my life without swimming, for me school will always come first. So I am looking to have that perfect balance of school and swim. 

I began swimming as a kid simply because water was fun, but as I grew older I noticed that swimming is a very unique sport. By this I mean that swimming is an honest sport. There are no magic tricks or easy solutions to victory. The results are a direct reflection of how much effort you put into it. You cannot look to other people for your success. On the contrary, you can only get so far on your own. Having a supporting team is an important part of training. A team works together to encourage and race each other. That is why I would be a good candidate to swim on a college team, because I know that the only way to reach my goals is through hard work and determination piled on top of hours of practice. But I also know my team will help me be the best I can be by pushing me to give full effort on every set.

My goals are to break my personal records, set new ones, and break them again. My main stroke is butterfly and I look forward to improving both my 100 and 200. I enjoy swimming 200 fly because it is challenging and not a lot of swimmers usually enter this event. That means the competition is fast and likely at a high skill level. This pushes the whole heat to swim up and race faster resulting in a fun and rewarding event. 

I am looking forward to hopefully joining a new team and learning new techniques and skills both in the pool and in the world.