The Sojourn Athlete of the Week, presented by Amplify Media, is junior Grant Brown from the IWU Men’s Swim and Dive program.
Although this team is new on campus, Brown has been training since the beginning. Brown is a local from Marion, IN, and went to Oak Hill High School.
Brown’s first collegiate year swimming was spent at conference opponent, Olivet Nazarene University. Due to unfortunate circumstances he decided to be done with his swimming career and academic career.
IWU started the idea of creating a men’s swim and dive program after large success on the women’s side. This sparked the Marion native.
The team began with a good amount of guys, but with the lack of competition, Brown remained the only
swimmer at the end. Although he trained by himself for a year, the season was full of hard training, growth, and new memories.
“That was tough last year because we lost everybody except me. By the end of October, it was really tough because I was in the first year back of swimming after not swimming for six years, and swimming is very technique-driven, so if you haven’t done it in a while, everything feels awful,” Brown said. “I think last year was my big year of growth. Losing all kinds of sense of self and trying to start a team after everybody quit really changed my perspective.”
The 2023-2024 season has been an impressive start for Brown and the rest of the team. In the last meet before the conference meet, Brown placed second in the 200-yard freestyle relay and third in the 100 yard butterfly.
Brown said, “What Mo is really focusing on this year is being more involved with the team emotionally and getting the guys to create a community with each other, which is much different from last year. Now we do a lot of things, like volunteering for volleyball games and soccer games, and eating a lot of our meals together after every practice.”
As Brown and the rest of the IWU men’s swim and dive program head into the tail end of the start-up season, the focus isn’t on performance, but rather, on growth.
“This postseason, we want to focus on perfect swimming, because our team gets tired,” Brown said. “We want to focus on our technique when tired and through longer swims.”
The IWU men’s swim and dive team compete in the Mid-South Conference Championships in Kingsport, Tennessee, Feb. 1-3, and select qualifies will compete in the NAIA National Championships in Columbus, Georgia, March 6-9.
