Q&A with Jamestown HS swimmer Jacquelyn Shearer
WILLIAMSBURG, Va.聽— A Q&A with Jamestown High School swimmer Jacquelyn Shearer.
ATHLETE INFO聽
Age: 16
Sport: Swimming
Sports participated in: Swimming and soccer
Years in current sport: 12
Teams: Rec Racers, 757 when it started
School: Jamestown High School
Grade/Year: 11th (Junior)
What is your biggest challenge in your sport, and what do you do to manage this challenge?
Jacquelyn Shearer: There鈥檚 a time in every athlete鈥檚 career when you enter a slump. You feel like you haven鈥檛 improved and that everyone else is so much better than you. My advice to manage this is be stubborn and stick with it because you will get better. You will improve. It鈥檚 just a matter of time to get over that mental barrier.
What was the best advice you were ever given?
Shearer: Practice like you鈥檙e competing.
What do you love about your sport?
Shearer: I love how every team is its own family in a way, and everyone grows close together over the years.
Do you have a pregame ritual you follow?
Shearer: I try to get a song with the right tempo stuck in my head, and I jump and stretch behind the block before a race.
What do you like to do outside of your sport?
Shearer: Outside of swimming, I like to coach my summer swim team and during the school year, I participate in the school play and musical.
What has being a member of a team taught you?
Shearer: That everyone relies on one another to build each other up. A common thing in swimming, in my opinion, is starting friendly rivalries to push each other during practices and competitions.
What is the best piece of advice you received from a coach or mentor?
Shearer: If you have a bad race, you should only focus on the bad for a minute or two and then think of the positives and focus on your next race so that mentality doesn鈥檛 follow you.
Describe a mistake you made while competing and how you overcame it.
Shearer: Once during a 200 freestyle, I choked on water and, to regain my breath, I did a breaststroke kick in the last leg. I thought I had been disqualified, which wasn鈥檛 good since it was a very fast meet, and when I told my teammates they assured me that I had not been disqualified due to the rules of freestyle.
Anything else you鈥檇 like to add?
Shearer: You don鈥檛 have to be the best at a sport to enjoy it, and you don鈥檛 have to stick with one sport all your life. You can broaden your athletic horizons by trying different seasonal sports. High school athletics are great if you just want to try something to see if you might like it.
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