I started swimming at age 9   We lived in Natchez, Mississippi at the time and the local team practiced outdoors in the summer.  During a bike ride in the park my Mom and I stopped to check it out.  My Mom was encouraging me to try but I remember thinking, "there is no way I am going to wear a speedo".  Luckily, she convinced me to try and I fell in love with the sport.

I spent three years on that team then took a year long hiatus as my Mom and I moved out to the Carolinas.  Once we settled in Upstate South Carolina we found Team Greenville and I promptly joined.  It was there where I lucked into two of the best coaches in the sport, Ed Pierce and Jim Keogh.  Ed turned me into a distance swimmer, instilling the discipline and strategies to be successful in distance swimming.  He also gave me the most insane workout set that I look forward to sharing.  Keogh took the foundation that Ed laid and exploded it.  He opened my eyes to IM events where I could use my distance training as an advantage while refining technique to round out other events.

Keogh's training method sets up swimmers perfectly for making another large step in college when they hit the weight room.  Unfortunately, I wasn't active in the college recruiting process and ended up settling for a "B" team role at Clemson.  After a semester, I was ready to move on.  That's when I explored my love of automobiles which led to a semester in Stuttgart, Germany, heading up engine development for Clemson's Formula SAE car, and finding that I could finance my college career by working as a co-op at GE in Greenville.

It was at the Formula SAE shop that I met my wife, Erin.  We married in 2005 and had our son Rigdon in 2007.  He's been in the pool since he was two weeks old, but there's no pressure ;).  I'm sure they will come out and cheerlead this season.

Even though I stopped swimming competitively I couldn't stay away from the sport.  I was the head coach of the Neely Farm SAIL team in 1999 and 2000.  Then volunteered with Hillcrest High School in 2006.