Ashlyn Penas (Swimming & Diving, University of Nebraska at Omaha) grew up in Lincoln. HelloNation asks student athletes one question about the place that raised them and records the answer on camera. This is Ashlyn Penas’s, in full.
The question
Tell us about a teacher or mentor from high school who challenged you the most or inspired you in a way that still shapes who you are today. Who are they, and what lesson from them do you carry into your life now?
The answer, as recorded
Transcript. What follows is a transcript of the video above, in Ashlyn Penas’s own words. It has not been rewritten, and no part of it was drafted for them.
A coach that really has just changed the way I look at swimming is Coach Sam, who is my current club coach that I go back to in the summers, but also was my club coach for the spring of my senior year. I originally was not going to swim in college. I was burnt out and I just didn't enjoy it anymore. And then after I took around like a two-month break, I ended up switching club teams and joined Sam's club team, HLA, which is where I fell in love with swimming again and decided to swim in college. He truly taught me that swimming is more than just hard work and just pushing yourself, which is a very big part of it. But swimming can also be fun. You can be at swim meets and have fun and chat with your coaches and hang out with your teammates and that's okay. It's you can do a simple game after a hard practice instead of doing like completely just gassing yourself and getting so burnt out. So he's a very big reason to why I am swimming in college and why I have fallen back in love with the sport.
Recorded by HelloNation as part of its athlete voices program and published by Hello Newswire, HelloNation’s good news newswire. The words are the speaker’s own.
Reported by Hello Newswire.