By: Jeweliana Register
Blake Woodrow, junior psychology major and member of the men’s swim team, has been swimming since the first grade. Woodrow is a distance swimmer and has attended nationals for the past three years. He expressed how happy he is that the team is doing so well this year and how great it is to be a part of the success.
How did you get started swimming?
“I got a flyer towards the end of first grade for a swim team. I decided to just try it out for the first week and I liked it, so I stuck with it.”
How did you end up at NSU?
“I looked at other places around the nation. I don’t remember how I initially found out about it because I live on the other coast of Florida, and I didn’t know about NSU for the longest time. Someone had mentioned it to me, and I took a recruiting trip here. I really liked the people, the area and the team, so I ended up coming here.”
What is your favorite part of being on the NSU swim team?
“I just like the comradery and how nice everyone is. Once we all know what we’re working towards, like this year our specific goal was to win conference, I mean we work towards it every year but we really had a shot this year, so I guess my favorite part is how close we all are.”
Who has been the most influential person in your swimming career?
“There are different influences for different reasons. I’d say, to motivate me to work harder, it would be a swimmer by the name of Fran Crippen. He was an open water swimmer who swam distance, which is what I swim. I won an open water event, and I got my medal from him, which was really cool. A few months later, he died during an open water event in Dubai because it was too hot outside. He just really inspires me to do better. Someone wrote an article about him and how much he pushed himself in practice, and that really inspired me. But, emotional support wise, it would be my mom. She is a very hardworking person. She kind of passed that on to me. I get a lot of inspiration from her as well.”
What is your practice schedule like?
“We have Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning practices. We also have Monday through Friday afternoon practices. The morning ones are just swim. We only get Wednesday and Friday mornings off, and we get all day Sunday off. During afternoon practice, we either do dry land or weights before we swim. I think the maximum practice hours are 24 hours, and we get in about 23.75 hours.”
What is the hardest part about being a student athlete?
“I feel a bit different than most student athletes because I usually get school pretty quickly. I also do not have to take as many classes since I came in with credits already, so my course load has not necessarily been too difficult. I’ve always kind of been able to balance things pretty well, which I can tell is important. The most difficult part is probably how much you pour your heart into the athletic side of it all. Being a student is pretty standard. It’s actually sometimes easier for some athletes to be students because I am already awake when I go to class because I already had morning practice. Time management is usually pretty set out because we have such a regimented schedule, but I would say having to pour my all into something, which is swim, and then having extra left over to do other things is somewhat challenging. It’s hard having to perform at a high level in everything that I do.”
You are headed to nationals soon. Can you tell us some more about that?
“This is my third time going. Every year, you have to qualify or have to be invited. It depends on your time, but you have to either make the cut or be invited. I was invited my freshman and sophomore year, as well as this year. It’s a really fun experience. Nationals is such a different event compared to the rest of the school year, especially different than conference. Conference and nationals are our two big meets. Nationals feels so different because you really get a feel for what you are doing. At conference, you are going up against other people in the state of Florida, which is nice because it is a really competitive meet. Then when you move to nationals, those people you competed against in Florida become your friends because now you guys are the Florida group. Nationals is just super cool because you really understand what it means to be an athlete. It all feels very fulfilling.”
What is your favorite part of your sport?
“The opportunity to push myself as much as I can. With any type of working out, but especially with swim, it’s never easy. If you did the same thing every day, like the same practice every day for the rest of your life, you’d be pretty good at that, but you can still always push yourself to do better. It amazes me how working out is never easy. My favorite thing about swim is how I get to continually push myself and see where I can go.”
What is your biggest accomplishment as a swimmer?
“My mom talked to me a few weeks ago, and she told me how much of an inspiration I am to her. I’ve been swimming for 13 or 14 years now, and she has told me along the way. I had one race in particular when I was 10 where I was behind, and I fought really hard to come back. She woke me up the next morning crying and told me how inspirational it was to her. She told me a few weeks ago after we had just finished conference how inspirational that whole meet was to her. She said she was tired and she was just spectating, so she can only imagine how it is for us to be competing. My biggest accomplishment is having my swimming reach beyond just swimming and having it impact someone else’s life. Being able to have someone tell me that it is very inspirational to them, it’s just very inspirational in itself.”
What are your plans after graduation?
“That’s a good question… Don’t hold me to it because I don’t know for sure. I am a psych major and I feel really in tune with psychology, but these past few years I’ve been really into stand-up comedy and just comedy in general. I feel I’m pretty funny, well I try, and I did stand-up a lot this past summer. I don’t have as much time to do it now because of my swim schedule, but I would like to see what I can do with that after college. If I decide to go to grad school, I’ll probably take a year off and then see what I do. While it may not be a great idea to try comedy after getting a college degree, I want to make the decision to try it while I’m still young and still have the energy to fight for that decision.”
Photo Credit: D. Hendricks
