The Asbury men’s swim team has a new addition. Junior Liam Chesser recently joined the team as a walk-on — a significant accomplishment for someone who has no competitive swimming experience.
“I knew a lot of the swim team members already,” Chesser said. “I was pretty good friends with a lot of people and they’re a good group of people so, at the beginning of this semester, I’ve been working out with one of my buddies from the swim team, Tommy Johnson, and he kind of took me under his wing and introduced me to reintroduce me to swim.”
Unlike many student-athletes who come to school to compete, Chesser has not had much experience swimming overall and none competitively, but his newfound passion had him considering the possibility of joining the team. Through the help of his new team, he was able to make that decision.
“I was encouraged by several of the other team members,” he said. “I had a natural talent for swimming so, after a lot of encouragement and a lot of serious talks, they encouraged me to go meet with Coach Keyser. I had a meeting with him. We kind of got a game plan together for how that application process would look and shortly thereafter I was on the team.”
Chesser’s biggest hesitation in joining the team was stepping into the life of a student-athlete halfway through his college experience. He wanted to balance the commitment with his studies, RA duties, and social life. However, Chesser took three weeks to see if he could manage to find that balance and found the practices meshed with his schedule well. He also could not ignore the positive team environment.
“The swim team on Asbury campus, in my experience, has been one of the most vocal groups of people I’ve ever met,” Chesser said. “Super encouraging, super positive and they’re very welcoming. They bring you into this kind of family right away and they’re just a really receptive group of people.”
Chesser and his new team started practices this week and will compete in October with their alumni match on Oct. 2 and their first meet against Campbellsville on Oct. 22.