As I look back at my past five years at UCLA, I can’t help but feel an utter sense of gratitude, fulfillment and emotions. Before attending UCLA, I was unsure if I even wanted to pursue collegiate athletics. The thought of moving anywhere else outside of Scottsdale, Arizona, terrified me. I figured that staying in my comfort zone, surrounded by people and things I knew, would still grant me the life I desired. But it was actually moving a mere six hours away to a whole new city and attending the No. 1 public university that forever changed my life.
For those who know me, my road in life has never been perfectly smooth. The hardships I encountered in middle school and high school at first caused me to quit swimming. Once I gathered enough courage to get back into it, swimming was the one thing that ended up giving me everything. It was my outlet, my escape, my passion and the thing that would lead me to UCLA. UCLA was the first college letter I ever received in high school. One morning, I was sitting in Spanish class and someone walked into the class with an envelope, and it had UCLA and my name on it, and my eyes immediately lit up with feelings of both shock and excitement. Little did I know I would call UCLA home for five years.
My freshman year, I actually almost quit UCLA and swimming for good, as I was trying to convince myself that I didn’t have the strength to be in a whole new city, a new place, and surrounded by new people, a new swimming environment and class setting. It all felt so overwhelming and I did not know what to do. It wasn’t until we had a meeting with our coach, Cyndi Gallagher at the time, that she said something so simple, yet so crucial to the rest of my time at UCLA: “No matter what you have going on, make sure you get out of bed every day and keep going.” After she said that, everything changed, and I had a breakout season of personal bests and falling in love with swimming and my new life in a whole new way.
I mentioned earlier that my road in life has never been perfectly smooth. If there is one thing I could share that I learned the most during my time at UCLA, it is that the road to success is never smooth. It is the bumps and hurdles in the road that have developed and shaped me into the athlete I was and the person I am today. I can’t thank my coaches Cyndi, Dan, Jordan and Karissa enough for helping me use the bumps and hurdles as my strength. Everything from COVID to highs and lows, wins and learning experiences, meeting incredible people, continuously growing and evolving personally, getting surgery my senior year, and setting up my life has all been so vital to the wonderful experience I had while at UCLA and the life I have now. UCLA has blessed me with the experiences, people and knowledge I couldn’t have attained anywhere else.
This is most certainly not a goodbye. I will forever be a Bruin and around as much as I possibly can. Attending UCLA has by far been one of my greatest achievements to date, and I am excited to see what the future holds.
Go Bruins!!
Love, Claire Grover
UCLA swim and dive
Grover competed for UCLA swim and dive from 2018-2023.
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