MAPLEWOOD, Mo. — You can make waves by jumping right in, like 13-year-old Anna Grace Guenther did.
“When I was like 4, I told my mom I want to swim,” she said.
Now, she makes a splash every day on the FAST swim team in Maplewood.
“There are just certain cuts, certain meets, that are considered an elite level for kids,” said coach Giordan Harris, referring to the time standard required to qualify for certain meets. “She has, I think, not only one, she has like four of those cuts.”
You can make bigger waves with a little push from a good coach — like Harris.
“He gives a lot of good advice on freestyle, so that's how I've gotten a lot better at freestyle,” said Anna Grace of Harris. “He's been to the Olympics in 50 free.”
Harris represented his home country, The Marshall Islands, in the last two Summer Games: 2012 and 2016.
“I still can't figure out how to describe my experiences,” he said. But he brings them with him to each morning practice – now, on the other side of the whistle's blow.
“You know, that's the first step, getting a trial qualifier, then getting a kid on the Olympic team. And then we'll go from there,” he said.
“He'll talk to them about it if they ask. But the coaching is about his swimmers, and I think that's really important,” said FAST head coach Diana Rosen. She said she didn’t even know Harris had gone to the Olympics until she saw it in his bio online.
"Everyone just kind of assumed that growing up on an island, you learn how to swim. That's actually opposite, where not many kids learn how to swim," said Harris. "It's actually one of the leading cause of death. So my mother wanted to make sure that that did not happen to me. So she threw me in the ocean, taught me how to swim."
Harris went on to get a swimming scholarship to go to college in the United States.
"Swimming pretty much shaped and changed my life," he said.
“I think it shows them that it's possible if Coach Giordan could do it, that means it's possible.”
Sometimes the dream is far away:
“I really just try to get better. I want to swim D1 in college and maybe the Olympics,” said Anna Grace.
Sometimes it's just on the edge of the pool.
“It's a dream being able to come out here out in the sunshine, changing kids’ lives, hearing my story, sharing my experiences, hearing their stories,” said Harris.
Even the waves are clapping.
“It's really fun,” said Anna Grace.