Christopher Merchant '13 Recruiting Profile

I started competitive swimming in the seventh grade after playing soccer exclusively since I was five years old. My times have steadily improved and I have mostly swum freestyle (50, 100, 200, 500) or IM events for my club and high school teams. I qualified for the high school state team two times as a competitor and once as an alternate and have been on the Varsity team since I was a freshman. Although most of my competition is in Iowa, I have gone to sectionals twice. For short course events my best 50F time is 23.6s, 100F is 50.1s, 200F is 148.12s, and 200 IM is 2:05.77. Ever since I started, swimming has been an important part of my life. I have committed myself to continuing to improve and am looking forward to summer workouts and long-course events. My academic goals are to pursue my interest and aptitude in science and mathematics at a school with a strong academic reputation. One of the main things that drives me to want to swim in college is that I really enjoy the team atmosphere of swimming and I find the rigor of practice helps me stay organized and successful academically. I feel I would fit in well on any team and would always try to give maximum effort in practice and maximum energy and enthusiasm in meets. My goals in swimming are to compete at as high a level as I can and to continue to improve as a swimmer over time.