Listen to the Letters to the Herd Podcast with Colleen Young and J.J. Duke
My name is
Colleen Young. I'm a senior at Fairfield, a Communication major, and a member of the Women's Swimming and Diving team.
The past four years I've spent at Fairfield University have easily been the best four years of my life. As a student, I was able to learn and grow with students and professors who were eager to work together to achieve academic success. As a student-athlete, I was on a team with that same commitment, passion, and determination to succeed that I saw in the classroom. With that work and will, we've been able to win MAAC Championships for the past three years – something I never thought would happen.
Coming off my freshman season, the women's swimming and diving team finished sixth in the MAAC. We were tired, broken, and defeated. We were in the middle of a coaching change and didn't know what the future would hold for the program. In the couple of months after MAAC Championships in February, a new coach was hired, a new assistant was hired, and a whole new attitude was found.
The following season – my sophomore year – completely redefined the way I swim. That year was my best year at Fairfield. In a dual meet with Marist, a team that had beaten us for the past several years and were the reigning MAAC Champions for the past eight years, Coach Bruno brought us together and told us, as a team, we were able to out-swim and out-dive them, and win.
At first, we were skeptical. But, as the meet went on, he was right. Several athletes had season-best times and near record-setting performances. On the sidelines, we were going crazy, screaming, cheering, doing whatever it took to hype each other up and prove that this was our year, that a new Fairfield swimming and diving program was beginning to rise… and we proved that with a bang. We won that meet against Marist by only 10 points, but those 10 points were all we needed to push forward and never look back.
At MAAC Championships that year I won the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke in school record times. We had several girls win an event, we had relays win events, we had school records broken, we had personal records broken, we had almost every girl score for our team, and we made school history by winning, as a team, for the first time ever in Fairfield women's swimming and diving history.
We didn't stop there. My junior year was just as sweet. We went undefeated in MAAC dual meets that year. We broke more school records, more MAAC champions were crowned, and again we won MAACs. My senior year, this year, the same thing happened. Fairfield women's swim and dive are now the 3x reigning MAAC Champions after finishing in sixth my freshman year.
As a member of this team, I've had my own personal successes. I've broken school records as an individual and on a relay, I've been MAAC Champion in both individual events and in relays, but more importantly, I've seen the success of a team rise from the bottom to the top and being a part of that will always be what I remember most.
I'm in a unique situation. I'm not finished competitively swimming like my senior classmates, but I will never find another team like my teammates at Fairfield. I've learned how to be a better swimmer, a better teammate, and a better person because of the people at Fairfield. I've learned what it takes to be successful by working hard and believing in yourself. I've learned that you shouldn't give up if something starts getting hard, you should push harder and harder until you eventually break through into the success that you know you're capable of. I've learned that with the right attitude you are able to achieve goals that you never knew were possible before. I owe all of my growth as a person to Fairfield.
Being able to call myself a Stag for the past four years has been an honor. Even though I'm graduating this year and moving on from Fairfield, I'll always be able to call myself a Stag because a Stag just isn't a mascot for us, it's the way you strive and succeed in whatever you do. It's having that pride in yourself whenever you accomplish a goal you set for yourself. It's having the determination to be the best version of yourself. It's being a Stag.
To all my future Stags out there, enjoy your time at Fairfield. Give your heart to everything you do, because you never know what could come of it. You are able to pave your own pathway to success because you are in control of everything you can do to be successful. Own yourself, be proud, and be a Stag!
Thank you to Fairfield University for giving me everything I've needed to be successful. Thank you to Coach Bruno for never giving up on me and always believing in me even when my faith in myself was low. Thank you to my teammates who have become my brothers and sisters over the years. Thank you to the Fairfield community for the endless support. It's not a goodbye, it's a see you later. J
Once a Stag, always a Stag.
Colleen Young '20
