Raul Garrastazu '12 Recruiting Profile

My name is Raul Garrastazu. I am seventeen years old, my height is 5 feet 10 inches and my weight is 145 pounds. Although I am a swimmer with good times in my age category either in events of short and long distance, I am most a long distance swimmer and my best strokes are free and butterfly. I have been swimming since I was six years old and I have to thank my coaches for that since they inculcate me the love and passion for this sport and to my mother who encourage me to be not only a better swimmer but also a better individual. As a long distance swimmer, my training and practices are very hard but I never complain about them because I know that all this hard work is for my benefit and to become the type of swimmer I want to be.

For me swimming is more than a sport, for me is a life style. I describe myself as a hard worker swimmer with a positive attitude and open mindedness and willingness to push myself beyond my comfort zone in order to succeed. As a swimmer, I have learned responsibility, punctuality and the importance of establishing goals and the motivation to work hard to achieve them. I know that these important values will help me not only to be a good sportsman but also a good citizen for my community and my country. All of these characteristics can be noted thru my swimming career in which every year I have worked very hard to consistently improve my times in the different events that I swim. As result of this hard work, I have several national records in different age categories and have received different awards and recognitions thru my swimming career.

During my swimming career, I have been swimming for my swimming club, my high school team and for my country, Puerto Rico. I made my first national swimming team in 2007 when I was 13 years old.  At that time, I was part of the Puerto Rico National Swimming Team who competed in the 2007 CCCAN (Central American and Caribbean Swimming Confederation) Swimming Championships in El Salvador. In that championship, I won in my age category four gold medals and one silver medal helping my country to get the third overall place behind Venezuela and Mexico.

 In the following years, I represented my country in the 2008 Caribbean Islands Swimming Championships in Jamaica, FLA 2009 International Age Group Invitational Fort Lauderdale FL., International School Sport Federation (ISF) Doha Gymnasiade 2009 in the State of Qatar, XXI Central American and Caribbean Games Mayaguez 2010 and the 2011 Central American & Caribbean Swimming Championship (age group). One of my most important achievements had been when I was selected with only 16 years to be part of the senior National Swimming Team of Puerto Rico to participate in the XXI Central American and Caribbean Games Mayaguez 2010. My most recent achievement was to make the required times established by the Puerto Rico Swimming Federation to participate in last August  in the 2011 FINA World Junior Championships in Lima, Peru.

My following goals are to participate again as a member of the senior National Swimming Team of Puerto Rico in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and get a swimming scholarship from an U.S. university that can provide me a good education and that in return I can contribute to the success of its swimming team.

In addition to swimming my other important responsibility has been to be a good student and for that reason I am very much compromised with that goal too. At this time, I am in my senior year of high school with a GPA of 3.84 and also, I am member of the National Honor Society of my school.

As my college years are approaching I get more exited because I know that I will swim for my university with the same passion and love that I have been swimming for my club, my high school and my country. During the one remaining year that I have before going to college, I will continue working very hard to improve more my times because my goal is to swim for a university that has a NCAA Division I swimming team.

I wish I could choose a college that allows me to develop as an excellent professional and at the same time allows me to continue developing as a good swimmer and thus help my college swimming team to achieve success. My plan is to start studying biology and then later decide if a career in medicine is the best option for me.