ASHLAND, Va. — Discover Kate Northcrafts’s perspective on personal goals, how she manages challenges, and what being on a team has taught her!  Kate, we can’t wait to see what the future holds for you!

Name: Kate Northcraft

Age: 16

Sport: Swim Team

Sports participated in: Basketball and Soccer on rec teams

Years in current sport: 9

Team/s: Patrick Henry Swim Team and Ashland Barracudas

For Student Athletes:

School: Patrick Henry High School

Grade/Year:  10th

What are your personal goals within your sport/athletic dreams? 

Kate Northcraft: My goals for swimming are mainly just to decrease my times in everything and increase my endurance when swimming butterfly.

What is your biggest challenge in your sport, and what do you do to manage this challenge?

Northcraft: Easily the biggest challenge I have when swimming is the balance between school and swimming. To work with this, I always keep track of everything I have due and finish my homework before going to practice. It’s important to me that my grades don’t change in a negative way because of swimming.

What was the best advice you were ever given?

Northcraft: The best advice given to me is not to compare myself to others. Some people are better at different things, so we are a team.

What do you love about your sport?

Northcraft: My absolute favorite part about my sport is my team. It would be alot harder to swim without the consistent support from my friends on the team.

Do you have a pregame ritual you follow?

Northcraft: I don’t have any specific “pregame ritual”, but after every home meet for my high school team, everyone always goes to the local Mexican restaurant to eat dinner.

What do you like to do outside of your sport?

Northcraft: Outside of swimming, I love traveling to places all over the world, hanging out with my friends, playing with my dogs, and playing other sports.

What has being a member of a team-taught you? 

Northcraft: Being part of the team has taught me that it’s important to know that you don’t have to be perfect at everything. In swimming, every swimmer has their special stroke that they do the best, and when we all come together, every spot gets filled. To me, this helps me remember I don’t need to be perfect at every stroke.

What is the best piece of advice you received from a coach or mentor?

Northcraft: The best advice I’ve ever received from a coach was to try to do all of the new swimming things (ex., breathing, stroke counts). I’m working towards this at the time in smaller portions when swimming and eventually building up to the whole race.

Describe a mistake you made while competing and how you overcame it.

Northcraft: It is so easy when swimming to accidentally do the wrong type of kick or a one-handed touch when you needed to do a two-handed one, and sometimes I get really upset when this happens. The best way to fix this is to practice all things you mess up the next day and practice for the next meet.

Has your team won any awards or reached any accomplishments that you would like to highlight?

Northcraft: We haven’t won any awards this year, but definitely hoping to!

Anything else you’d like to add?

Northcraft: It has also given me the possibility to teach younger kids how to swim. It’s very helpful that I have lots of experience with swimming competitively, so I know all the tips and tricks to help new swimmers.

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