Athletics

Trust The Process

N Our Voice by Gena Jorgenson

Scott Bruhn

Throughout my life, I’ve never once dove into a pool with the mindset of breaking records.

If that’s something I choose to focus on, my priorities are not straight.

In my first two seasons swimming for Nebraska, I’ve had the honor of breaking multiple school records.

But make no mistake, that’s not what motivates me.

Seeing my name as a school record holder is nice, but records are made to be broken, right? As time passes, my legacy at Nebraska won’t be based on how many records I did and didn’t break.

My legacy will be defined by how I gave everything I had every time I put on that Husker swim cap.

It sounds so simple, but before every meet, I’m focused on swimming faster than I’ve ever swam before and reaching personal bests.

If it just so happens I earn a school record while scoring a personal best, that’s wonderful and I’ll be elated about that.

But in sport where our success is measured by time, I’ve learned not to obsess over my times because while they can be a fantastic motivator, they can also be a destructive roadblock.

Even the best swimmers in the world have bad days and off meets, so going back to high school, I’ve always prided myself in putting in the work and trusting my coaches no matter what my times showed.

I always believed if I did that, on my best and worst day, my swim career would take me where I wanted it to be.

Sharing personal bests with the best

This may sound exaggerated, but when I was swimming in the 1650 Freestyle at the Big Ten Tournament last year, I felt faster than I’ve ever been.

It was such a powerful feeling.

That being said, I still had no idea what my time was going to be.

I felt great and fast, but when I touched the wall and took my goggles off to see my time, I was over the moon about what I saw.

20 seconds faster than my previous PR.

20 seconds!

A new personal best and a school record.

While it’s always the greatest feeling in the world to set a personal best, I think it means even more in the 1650 Freestyle because it’s such a long race.

I’m mentally and physically exhausted by the time I touch that wall, and setting a PR and a school record makes it that much more fulfilling in a long race where I left everything in the pool.

And apparently, there must be something special in that conference tournament water because I broke the mile record again at this year’s Big Ten Tournament.

Once again, it wasn’t something I was expecting, but I just remember my teammates cheering me on and going crazy when they saw I beat my own record.

Sharing that moment with them in the 1650 Freestyle is something I’ll always remember.

This record is just as much mine as it is theirs for all the unwavering love and support they’ve shown me the past two years at Nebraska.

Reaching the podium

At NCAAs this year, I accomplished the feat I’m probably the most proud of thus far in my career when I was named a First-Team All-American.

The circumstances were kind of crazy, though, because it’s not like I finished the 1650 Freestyle and knew instantly I’d made All-American status.

In fact, I didn’t even win my heat – I came in second.

So that’s where I had somewhat mixed emotions because I broke my mile record again with a time of 15:55.71, and I was obviously thrilled about that.

I cleared the 16-minute mark, which was huge and something I’d been working tirelessly toward.

But at this point, there were still eight more girls left to swim, so the last thing I was going to do was pat myself on the back.

Only the top eight swimmers with the fastest times can make All-American, so I had to sit there and anxiously watch the last heat to see if my time was good enough to make it into the top eight.

Milliseconds can make all the difference in the world in swimming, so it’s no surprise that it came down to the last two lengths of the race to determine if I was going to finish eighth or ninth.

When the race ended and I saw that I had made the top eight, it was a combination of jubilation and relief for an extremely anxiety-inducing 16 minutes or so.

What I didn’t know, at least not until a day or two later, was that I was the first All-American swimmer at Nebraska since 2001.

It was all over social media, so my phone just blew up.

People were texting me like crazy and I received all these amazing congratulatory messages.

If I’m being completely honest, receiving that recognition was humbling because I was just happy I could give something back to the Huskers and help put our program on the map.

They’ve done so much for me thus far in my career, and I’m confident that this accolade is a sign of many great things to come in the future for this incredible program.

The lap to victory

Based on what I’ve learned in my swimming career, if I were to give any advice, I’d encourage others to just keep improving day in and day out.

That’s not strictly for swimmers.

Whatever it is you’re passionate about and love to do, pursue it to the fullest extent.

And most importantly, have fun doing so.

Like I mentioned earlier, in this sport, it’s easy to get obsessive over times and define your worth as an athlete in those times. But that’s not what collegiate swimming is about for me.

It’s about striving to improve every single day and sharing a lifetime worth of memories with a team that has become your second family.

I’ve broken six school records at Nebraska and became the first All-American in over 20 years.

I’m so proud of all of that, but it’s the relationships and camaraderie I’ve built with my teammates and coaches that I’m going to remember and miss the most when I graduate.

I’m a firm believer that if you do what you love with people that you love, in addition to doing the work each day, you’ll put yourself in a position to be successful.

While I know there’s no guarantee I’ll break another record or become an All-American again, I’m going to continue to trust the process and surround myself with people that love and care about me.

If I do that, podium or not, I’ll have already won.