Senior Series - Erin Butler

As I finished my high school swimming career, I started thinking about what swimming truly means to me. I started swimming at six years old when my parents signed me up for summer swimming. I joined B3 12 years ago. B3 eventually merged with Lake Erie Silver Dolphins, but B3 is where I met my first swim friends, some of whom continue to swim with me to this day.

When I got to high school, I knew many of the Hawken swimmers because I had either swum with them or just seen them at meets. Before my first practice, I was, quite honestly, terrified. Knowing the history of the Hawken swim team meant understanding the huge expectations that were going to be put on my shoulders both in and out of the water. However, I soon understood that the incredibly fast team was extremely caring to everyone on it, regardless of whether they were state champions or people who just joined the team for a good time.

This team has seen my highest points and my lowest points, has seen me laugh and seen me cry, and remains just as caring and considerate as when I was first downloading GroupMe and joining the swim team group chat. The memories that I created here are memories that I am going to treasure forever, from Helen the monkey, to Halloween relays, to biting the heads off of animal crackers in the locker room and imagining they were Adam's face after a hard practice. Some of the memories are of small little things, like Preston's daily break or the day lane 15 turned into rappers. Some of the memories are of big things, like the team dinner after States when we are half having fun and half crying or the intersquad meet on winter training day.

Being an athlete at Hawken has taught me how to persevere and how to value my own success on an equal level to the team's success. As much as I disliked hearing the sprint practices, doing 50s before being told to do 8 400s, or waking up way too early in the morning every day, I knew that I was working towards a goal - and that at the end of the season, I would look back and wish that I had gotten more time, although in the moment I couldn't wait for it to taper. Being an athlete at Hawken isn't all happy; it is hard, and you grow sick of spending time in the pool and your hair always being wet. It builds amazing bonds between people because they have seen you go through so much every single day. I still remember one day when Chloe turned to me and said, "No offense, but I am sick of seeing your face because it means that I have to go swim again." Swimming at Hawken is also hard just because Adam seems to take great joy in putting us through the hardest sets he could come up with (thanks Adam) and pushing us past what we thought that we could do. Swimming has taught me to raise my expectations for myself and to never give up before I have tried because I might be able to make the send-off that I thought was impossible.

This team has been through so much with me and means the world to me, and I am so grateful to have gotten the chance to swim with each and every one of you. Thank you.