They said, “Tiny parents can’t make a champion.”

What they didn’t see was a scared kid, moving from home to home 🧳, frozen at the edge of the pool 🌊.

Two coaches — Erin and Paul — noticed. 🤍
They didn’t push. They sat beside me.
They stepped into the water first and waited. 🫶
When everyone else walked away, they stayed.

Twenty years later, the medals hang on my wall 🏅✨
But the first lane — the one where someone believed in me — will always belong to them. 💙