Natalie Fosberg '21 Recruiting Profile

I'm Natalie Fosberg and I've been swimming competitively ever since the age of 6. I've swam basically my whole life, but I'm going to be truthful because I believe that being honest is an important characteristic that everyone should have. I've had my ups and downs with swimming (like almost every athlete does) ,but I got to the point where I just quit because I couldn't take it anymore. I stopped for about 2 years at about the age of 13. I wanted to find something else I was good at because it felt like my whole life was just in the pool and I couldn't mentally go through that because I didn't love it enough. I searched for things I enjoyed doing and that I could eventually become good at. I found that I love learning about foreign languages. I would spend hours just repeating vocabulary words in my head over and over again. I loved being able to break down the language, study the core of it, and then put the pieces back together. I finally found something, other than swimming, that I had the potential to do great things in. Although I did miss the sport, even when I disliked it, I still missed it because I started to realize swimming wasn't just something I was good at, but it was part of who I was. I wanted to be back in the water and I wanted to race and feel all the nerves and excitement before my event again and feel the support of my teammates as they cheered because they're like my family to me. I'm not saying it was easy going back because it wasn't. It was hard and emotionally tough, but this time was different. I went back as swimming being a part of me, not all of me, just a part. I'm not just a swimmer, I'm a loving sister, daughter, and grand-daughter. I'm involved with my school, for I am the secretary in Student Council, a class officer, part of SADD, National Honor Society, Key Club (secretary), French Club, and I plan on joining Spanish club as well. I take school seriously because my grades are important to me and now I strive to try to get better each year. I believe that trying is something that makes life interesting because if you don't try, you'll be in the same spot forever and nothing will change. Each day I try--some days more than others, but I do try. I try to improve my grades, my times, my leadership skills, my technique in the water, and any obstacle that may come my way. I'm not saying I'm the perfect athlete because there may be some days that I come into practice thinking that I don't belong here or that I can't do this, but that's why I believe that having a strong loving family on the team is very important. Some days I didn't think it would have been possible to get through a practice without my team because a team is a family and they should always support one another. I have dreams of graduating college and studying foreign language across the sea. I wanna see the world and I'm not going to let anything slow me down from doing exactly that. I believe that my love for foreign languages helped me find my love for swimming again. It helped me understand that not everything is perfect and that sometimes you have to break things apart to able to understand how to put it together again. I had to take apart swimming to understand why I do it and I simply believe it's because I couldn't imagine my life without it and without my team and my coaches. I left, but I came back and I will always come back to it because I know it's a part of me I can never let go and because I do love it and I believe that swimming in college in the end will help me pursue my goals on learning languages, traveling, and all around just being a better version of myself than the day before.