Senior Lucas Goodwin has played his fair share of sports in high school — from soccer as an underclassman to football at the beginning of his junior year. 

Going into high school, Goodwin didn’t think he would participate in any winter sports. However, he ended up joining the La Salle swim team as a junior and continuing it into his senior year, having always held an appreciation for the sport.  

“I love swim way more than I ever thought I would,” he said. 

Goodwin originally started swimming to hang out with friends. To his surprise, he took to the sport quickly, he said, adding that he was also good at it. 

“It was just really meaningful for the ability for me to learn something new,” Goodwin said.

In addition to having the opportunity to socialize with his friends through the sport, Goodwin has also met more people by participating in swimming.

“I’ve been trying something I’ve never done before, and it was a really fun experience where I got to connect with more people than I thought,” he said. 

Goodwin highly values the team aspect of the sport, even though it mainly consists of individual events. 

“I just saw myself as everyone’s friend as best as I could,” he said. “That’s what I tried to do.”

On the swim team, Goodwin races in the 50- and 100- yard freestyle events. Additionally, he participates in the 200- and 400- yard freestyle relay. 

Goodwin’s favorite event is the 50- yard freestyle, which he has a time of 30 seconds in. For Goodwin, this is a big accomplishment, as he said it represents the work that he’s put in to improve his time since the beginning of the season. 

During the season, practices were an hour every day of the week, excluding Tuesday, when they ran for an hour and a half. From Goodwin’s perspective, practices were difficult, mainly due to their duration and frequency. 

“Practices are way harder than the actual swim meet in my experience,” Goodwin said.

Although practices were hard, he believes the swim team ended its season in a positive way. 

For Goodwin, he finds the best way to juggle schoolwork and sports is through strategic time management, something he’s gotten a lot of experience doing having participated in sports all four years of high school. 

“I’ve been doing sports for so long now, I’m just balanced at this point,” he said. He does homework whenever he has free time in between practices and meets.

Goodwin mentioned that he has had many great memories on the swim team, a few being long bus rides where he was able to connect with friends. 

But when asked which meet was his favorite he said it was against Hood River Valley High School, “where we beat the other team by one point.”

When it comes to competition, Goodwin focuses on growth and bettering himself rather than beating others at meets. 

“My goal, as in, the swim team, was to just beat my own records,” Goodwin said. “I wasn’t planning on beating anyone else.”

Goodwin doesn’t plan on competing in swimming for college and says he is dedicating the last couple of months to school. He is also starting track and ready to focus on the track season ahead, keeping a mindset of hard work.

“My mindset is always locked back into just showing up … seeing if I can get any better today,” he said.

Correction: March 12, 2026 

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated when senior Lucas Goodwin began playing football.