Dillen Phillips '21 Recruiting Profile

Making it to finals at the high school state swimming meet has been a dream of mine for a long time and being able to finally make it last season has been the highlight of my high school career. However, I feel I grew the most in those two years where I didn't make it. Those two years were the reason that I decided to work harder in practice and take every opportunity I could to improve to the point where I could swim in college.

My first two years swimming in high school were probably the roughest I've ever experienced in my whole swimming career. The main reason for this is because of my anxiety and the obstacles I had to face because of it. I used to hold myself back because I was always too afraid to fail. There were so many times where I used to tell myself " I can't do it; I can't do it" and I sometimes would do worse because of it. I sometimes psyched myself out before races by asking questions such as "what will happen if I don't go fast enough?" "will my coaches be disappointed in me?" "will my teammates and my parents be disappointed in me?" instead of going out and just doing the best I could. Since then I’ve been able to overcome those obstacles and have made leaps and bounds in abilities and learned to finally start believing in myself.  Next year, I believe I will beat at least one more school record.

From a very young age I always loved swimming. My whole life I’ve always wanted to be in the water, and I knew it was where I was always meant to be. I first found my high school program and my club program through my long-time coach who first introduced me to the programs in 7th grade.