I knew where I wanted to go to college when I was in middle school, but I never thought I would actually achieve that goal. When I was 13 my family and I went to Charleston, South Carolina for summer vacation. I enjoyed the state so much that I decided then and there I wanted to go to college somewhere in South Carolina. 

Fast forward 3 years and one of my close family friends started college at the University of South Carolina. During spring break I visited her on my way back from the beach and absolutely fell in love with the campus. From then on I was set on going to school there.

Related: Rate the University of South Carolina

My goal since middle school has been to swim in college. After deciding I wanted to go to UofSC, I looked a little more into their swim program and decided it seemed like a perfect opportunity for me. I knew that they were a Power 5 school in a major conference (SEC), but out of all the teams in the SEC they were ranked closer to the bottom. In my eyes, this meant I would have the chance to compete among the elite, and still have a decent chance of getting on the team. This gave me hope of the possibility of being a walk-on. So, my junior year I reached out to the head coach and expressed my interest, then awaited a reply.

Ghosted!

I never got a reply. It had been months and still no email back. I thought maybe this was a sign that it wasn't meant to be. In the meantime I reached out to a couple schools and set up recruiting trips just so I had other options. Around the beginning of my senior year I took 3 recruiting trips to schools I had been talking to. I had fun at all of them, but I didn't feel as much at home as I did when I visited South Carolina's campus. They still hadn't gotten back to me, so I had ruled out swimming there. However, I still applied early to the University just in case I decided I wanted to go in the future and not be a student athlete.

Early Commitment

In the swimming world, as with other sports, it's pretty common to commit to college relatively early. A lot of swimmers, especially the faster ones, commit as early as the beginning of their junior year of high school. So, when it came to November of my senior year, I started to get a little nervous. University of North Carolina Wilmington had been the school I had decided I wanted to swim for. I had fun on my recruiting trip; they had a beautiful campus next to the beach and everyone was pretty friendly. They weren't sure if they had a spot for me on the team so I had to wait anxiously for a month or so after taking my trip, but eventually the coach informed me I could join the team. I was pretty excited–this was a big deal. UNCW was still D1, so I had achieved my long-term goal. But for some reason when signing day came around, I had little to no excitement while writing my signature and officially committing to the school. A little later on I got my acceptance letter to the University of South Carolina, which gave me some hope even though I still hadn't heard back from the coaches.

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Second Chance

As my senior year started to come closer and closer to an end I couldn't help but feel like I made the wrong decision with UNCW. University of South Carolina was still in the back of my mind, so I decided I wouldn't fully give up. I decided to attend University of South Carolina's admitted students' day after my mom encouraged me to. She also knew that UofSC was the school I should be going to. While on campus, my club coach gave me the number of one of the coaches there. I reached out and asked if I could chat with him and learn more about the swim program. He replied and invited us to his office that evening. During the meeting I felt a little discouraged. It had almost felt like the coach was implying I wasn't fast enough to swim on the team through the way he was talking about the program. But my mom assured me I was just overthinking, which in hindsight I probably was. Around this time I also emailed the other coaches once more to express my interest again and asked about a chance to be a walk-on, just to show some persistence.

I am glad I went out of my comfort zone and decided to push for the school I wanted. In the end it was worth it–I was able to train with a very talented group of athletes while personally improving as well.

Sammie Grant

New Beginnings

This coach actually ended up leaving the school a couple months later, but luckily another coach reached out to me around the same time as his departure. She was responding to the email about being a walk-on, and informed me this would definitely be a possibility. Unfortunately she then ghosted me again for some time.

I figured I was close enough to being on the team, so I sent the UNCW coach a short email informing her of my decision to decommit from them and commit to UofSC. Looking back this was probably extremely inappropriate. I should've called and elaborated more on my decision while expressing more sympathy. But I was young and didn't realize that at the moment.

I attended my orientation in July and this is when I finally committed. I had been talking to a girl who was already committed to swim there about my situation, so when she found out I was on campus for orientation, she sent me the head coach's number. I texted him and asked to talk more about the opportunity for me to become a walk-on and he invited me to practice the next morning to do just that. Once I arrived he offered me to swim on my own for a little, since I had missed some practices due to orientation. Afterwards he offered me a spot right away, and the rest is history!

I am glad I went out of my comfort zone and decided to push for the school I wanted. In the end it was worth it–I was able to train with a very talented group of athletes while personally improving as well. If you're in the recruiting process, make sure to never settle. 

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* Originally published on September 21, 2022, by Sammie Grant