Holly Bill

Q: Describe your favorite memory or moment in swimming. 

A: I would say my favorite memory in swimming is last year, at regionals, I got my best time in the 200 freestyle. I tried really hard to break off my time compared to previous years. It was just a really rewarding moment because I finally out touched the other girl and it was a very happy moment for me because I finally felt like all of my training had paid off and everyone was really happy for me. 

Q: What is your biggest takeaway that you have learned playing the sport? 

A: I think the biggest takeaway that I’ve learned is you really get out what you put into it. You’re not gonna improve at swimming if you don’t try really hard in practice or if you don’t go to very many practices. In my junior year I really put a lot more effort into swimming than I had in previous years. That’s when I finally started to see all of the work that I put in paying off in my races. 

Q: Describe a challenge that you overcame and how you moved on. 

A: I would say a challenge that I overcame was that freshman year, I was really nervous to swim backstroke because the whole process of doing a backstroke start is kind of scary. When you push off the wall, you have to really arch your back or else you’ll back flop and it really hurts when you do that, so I was always afraid of doing backstroke starts. During practices I really learned and practiced a lot of them until I was confident enough to do them in races. I would say that’s a challenge that I overcame by doing extra starts.

Q: How have you grown in the past four years of playing? 

A: I think I’ve grown as a swimmer because I’ve improved a lot since my freshman year. But also as a person. I really love the team aspect of the swim team. I really love all the people that I’ve been friends with through the sport. From practices and meets I think it’s both made me a better swimmer and a better person because I’ve made so many friends and they encourage me to be a good person.

Q: How has your experience in your sport contributed to who you are now? 

A: You get out what you put into it. I think I’ve taken that mentality to a lot of my other aspects of life. Like school, running, and cross country. I’ve learned that it’s contributed to who I am today because of how much I improved junior year. The reason why I improved junior year was by trying much harder in practice. That’s contributed to my mentality in school and just trying hard in my classes. Also in other sports like cross country, pushing myself harder in practices for that. 

Q: How long have you been swimming? And why did you start? 

A: I started swimming when I was really little. When I was seven or eight I joined the summer league swim team. I was on the Spotswood swim team. That’s where I really found a really big enjoyment for swimming, I really loved the sport and I just had a lot of fun on the swim team. When I came into high school, I joined the high school team my freshman year. I’ve been swimming for four years[in high school], but in swimming as a whole, I’ve been competitively swimming since I was  seven or eight.   

Q: How often do you swim? 

A: I used to swim every day when we would have high school practices. I would swim from when the season would start in late November, early December and then go until the end of January, beginning of February,  I would swim weekdays during that. I would [also] swim every day over the summer when we had summer league practices.

Q: What other sports do you play/ have played? 

A: During a normal year I run cross country in the fall ;/’and I do outdoor track in the spring. I didn’t do it last year, because everything got canceled but I did do it my freshman and sophomore year. I do a lot of running even though I’m not good at it at all. 

Q: What’s your favorite part of playing sports overall? 

A: I think my favorite part of sports is probably the team aspect.  In all of my sports, not just swimming, I’ve gotten really close to the people who I participate in the sport with. I think that’s definitely more important to me then getting fast times or breaking records or stuff like that. I think it’s just the team aspect and the community I feel like is a lot more important than getting too overly competitive. Obviously I still try really hard in all my sports, but I think my favorite part has been the people who I have played them.