Swimming and golfing are two things that take up much of junior Alexa Storie’s time, both during the school year and summer.
Storie first started swimming at Cascade Athletic Club when she was three years old. After taking a break from swimming lessons, she started again at eight years old and then joined her club, the Columbia River Swim Team, which she has been on for nine years.
When she was 10 years old, her dad introduced her to golfing. She would occasionally play for fun,but it wasn’t until her freshman year that she entered into competitive golf, playing for the La Salle girls golf team.
For both sports, the main thing that she enjoys about them is the community.
Any time there is a break during golf practice, she is able to socialize with her teammates whom she has grown close to over the past two years.
“We all started the same year, so we’ve kind of done the same thing together all of these years,” she said. “We all know each other, so we’re really close.”
Her swimming community is constantly blossoming as more people join the team and former teammates graduate each year.
“You still have your close friends that you’ve had for the last two or three years, but with the new people that come in, I feel like you’re just able to have a group that expands a lot more,” she said.
Storie is part of two swimming communities; her club team and the La Salle swim team. While both motivate her to become a better swimmer, she said that the biggest difference between them are the workouts.
In her club team, she practices year-round with very few breaks and harder cardio training. With the La Salle swim team, she is able to focus more on her technique while also having harder but shorter practices.
These communities are what motivate her to continue pursuing golfing and swimming. “I think if I didn’t like the people, I wouldn’t do the sport because they’re such a big part of it,” Storie said.
Her teammates in golf also inspire her to keep trying to be better. “They’re the people that motivate me to keep going,” she said. “I’ve seen people start off not that well, and then really take time to practice it and become really good.”
It’s not just her teammates that encourage her and help her get better, — Storie’s coaches are also big points of inspiration, and she considers both of them her role models.
Storie has had the same club swimming coach for the past six years, and “she’s always supported me with everything I wanted to do or change,” she said.
Though she has not known her golfing coaches for as long, they support her just as much, helping her one-on-one so that she can grow and stay optimistic. “They really motivate us to be like, ‘Okay you’re struggling with this, but you’re also really good at this now,’” Storie said.
While she has love for both of the sports she plays, her least favorite aspects are how tiring and late-running practices are, especially when the team has to golf in the rain. It can also be challenging for Storie to overcome mental roadblocks when she does not see progress.
“I feel like the hardest part is being good at something one day and then being bad at it the next,” she said.
Her friends on the team provide support for her in overcoming these roadblocks, as they’re always trying to help others improve by teaching each other things that they are good at.
Because swimming was a major time commitment, she had to take a step back from it once she transitioned into high school. From the commute, homework, and other factors, it was difficult for her to find a balance with school. “I take less time from it, and that’s how I’ve balanced it,” Storie said.
Before, club swimming took up to three hours of her afternoon each day. She would then have to come home and try to complete all of her homework. Now, she usually only goes to her club swim practices three times a week, though with the high school season it varies.
Last year, it was especially difficult for Storie to find a balance between her sports and school because she would have to miss many of her classes due to golf tournaments and swim meets. “It was really hard to have to take a minute to catch up and then also try to hang out with your friends on top of that,” she said.
This year though, she feels like she has been balancing her time better during the swim season and has learned how to do so more effectively.
Her goal for this swim season is “just to lose time,” she said, hoping to gain new personal records. Storie is also hoping to make the district finals this year as she has done so in the past two years and to make it to state.
Knowing that next year is her last swim season at La Salle, Storie wants to make sure that she stays consistent with districts. She also wants to leave the team with a good understanding of who she is as a person.
“I feel like over my last three years, I just want people to know me,” Storie said. “Not just for my swimming, but me.”
The biggest takeaway Storie has had with golfing and swimming since she first started them is the commitment that she learned from sticking with them.
“Because of how many years I’ve been doing it, I feel like I understand how to commit to something better,” she said. “I also feel like I understand myself more.”
As she looks towards the future, Storie knows that she does not want to continue swimming or golfing for a team in college, but she wants to do them for leisure. She is planning on attending college, possibly to major in finance or sports marketing since she has always been interested in the concept of marketing and doing it with sports companies.
