Finding Myself by Derek Maas
6/15/2022 8:45:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
I became a better swimmer when I realized I didn't need the sport.
It's kind of crazy how that works out sometimes.
All the way up to my sophomore year of college, so much of who I was as a person was tied to the sport I loved.
I needed to remember that I was more than just a swimmer. I had to remind myself that it wasn't my whole life.
But it's tough to see the light at the end of the tunnel when so much weight is on your shoulders. Balancing swimming and schoolwork in the middle of a global health pandemic was one of the hardest things I'd ever experienced.
I started to lose a lot of weight, and my performance in the pool suffered. And with those struggles, I only questioned myself even more.
Who was I if I couldn't be a great swimmer?
Following in my brother's footsteps
I've been swimming my whole life. While I've played other sports, too, swimming has always been a huge part of everything I've done.
One of the reasons my dad got me and my siblings into swimming in the first place was because he read an article that said there were more swimmers from my area in college than all other sports combined.
We lived right on the lakeshore in Holland, Michigan, where learning to swim was practical. My mom didn't want us drowning in Lake Michigan, and our dad thought it could potentially help further our education after high school.
And he wasn't wrong, either.
My older brother signed with The University of Alabama as a student-athlete on the swim team. A few years later, I was following in his footsteps on the same path.
I know a lot of people don't like to follow in other people's footsteps, but it just made everything easier for me. It was a smooth transition because I already knew everybody on the team.
But most of all, I've always considered my brother my role model and somebody I've looked up to in life.
I joined the team as a freshman when he was a senior. So just getting that opportunity to be there with him and share in that accomplishment is something I really took to heart.
The coolest part was telling all my friends and family I signed with Alabama. My signing happened the year they were the defending national champions in football. I'd throw that name out there and people would immediately get all wide-eyed and say, "Wow, Alabama! That's a big deal."
As an incoming freshman, you never get tired of hearing that.
All work, no play
That first year with my brother was amazing, but things started to take a turn for reasons outside of anyone's control once I became a sophomore.
Like every other student-athlete across the country, I was dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Gyms, stores, and schools were closed at the time, and I was spending most of my days grinding through swim practice and challenging classes online.
There were days when I didn't even see the sun.
I wasn't getting outside all that much, and I was starting to lose noticeable weight. The weight loss started to impact me in the pool and ultimately hurt my athletic success.
At the time, I was tethered to swimming to the point where it started to impact me mentally.
One perfect example of that was when I competed in the Olympic Trials and was hard on myself for not being at my best. I was already coming off a rough swim season, and I couldn't even enjoy the fact that I got to meet with and compete against the best swimmers in the world.
Honestly, that meet was sort of the turning point for me, and things have been uphill ever since that moment.
The comeback
Once we sort of got back to normal this past year, it was a huge change for me physically and mentally. It helped when places of business started opening again. My weight got back up, and I really started to hit my stride as a student-athlete both in and out of the water.
It's okay to be passionate about a sport.
It's not okay to be overly critical of yourself while doing it to the point where you let it consume you. I needed to break away from that and find myself again.
I felt like I was able to do that for the most part, and it ended up helping me earn the Paul W. Bryant Student-Athlete Award, which is presented annually to the top male and female student-athletes. Words can't even describe how much of an honor it was for me to be a recipient.
I go back and look at some of the names that have won that award and the amazing things those individuals have gone on to accomplish — Mac Jones, Greg McElroy, and Robert Howard. It's an amazing group to be a part of and the greatest honor.
It also gives me hope that I'm on the right path to achieving great things as well in the future after college.
This is my story
There are so many more things I hope to accomplish while I'm at Alabama, though.
I'll still be a part of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) next year in hopes of continuing to enact real change on campus. I'm also passionate about my work with the Spanish club. I became a member as a freshman, and similarly to SAAC, we try to involve the community in our outreach.
We set up a tutoring program with native Hispanic students in elementary schools and middle schools around the community with Spanish club members tutoring and helping them with their classes.
Just considering all the time and energy I've put into it; I think it's an important part of my story.
When people ask me why I'm so passionate about Spanish, I always go back to an incident that happened at a hospital.
There's a large Spanish-speaking population in my hometown, and I didn't know much Spanish at the time—at least not enough to speak it fluently.
I'd taken some classes in high school and middle school but nothing super serious.
I was volunteering at the local hospital one day, and there was a moment where a patient needed a couple of witnesses. His father was one of the witnesses, but there was a language barrier. At that time, I just didn't have the Spanish-speaking ability to be able to help as much as I wanted.
I couldn't even imagine what that was like for him without a medical interpreter there at that time. That was sort of what drew me into wanting to practice Spanish.
If I do become a doctor in the future, I want to be able to communicate with Spanish-speaking patients with the same quality as English-speaking ones.
That's the kind of work that has reminded me that I'm more than just a swimmer. I'm more than just an athlete. Life doesn't just start and stop in the pool.
I finally understand that thought process, as I work towards my next chapter.
We all have our own stories to write in life, and I plan on making mine a good one.
