How College Swimming Changed My Life: Digital Media Coordinator Tara Hahto

Photo Courtesy: Tara Hahto

By Nikki Cannon, Swimming World College Intern

The practices endured, championships won, times where success seems out of reach and failure inevitable, the friendships forged and the memories made; there is no doubt that college swimming will change the course of one’s life.

This week I interviewed Tara Hahto, a Boise State swimming alum, to hear her reflections on how her four years as a Bronco has affected her life. A little background on Tara….

Tara is a Canadian who grew up swimming for the late Randy Bennett at Island Swimming. As mentioned, she swam her four years away at Boise State University under coach Kristin Hill. Tara experienced immense success as a Bronco, bringing the team from its developmental years to securing two conference championships in the Western Athletic Conference.

While her swimming success, both individually and for the team, were boundless, Tara is probably best known for her hilarious and contagious spirit. Beloved by all her teammates, she never fails to bring a laugh, provide insight on life, or crack a joke…no matter the circumstance. I was able to chat with Tara a little bit about her time as a Division I swimmer.

Photo Courtesy: Boise State Athletics

Nikki: So what are you up to now career-wise?

Tara: Well, first I took a two-year stop as a graduate assistant coach at Texas Christian University. But now I’ve landed at Canadian InterUniversity Sport/Sport InterUniversitaire Canadien (CIS/SIC) as the Digital Media Coordinator. Essentially I’m in charge of developing and maintaining our strategy, as well as creating and curating the content on our digital media platforms surrounding the 21 national championships for varsity sports in Canada.

NC: Wow. So you’re still very much in the sports realm of things. What kind of things did swimming in college teach you that prepared you for such a position?

TH: The ability to do hard, boring, soul-crushing work and power through painful monotony. If there’s anything the late Randy Bennett (Island Swimming) taught me, and that Kristin Hill (Boise State) reinforced, it’s the honor of hard work. Knowing that it doesn’t all have to be flashy is very powerful. Knowing that sometimes in order to get one cool statistic to highlight during the 2015 Pan Am Games, you’ll need to do two, three, even four days work of data basing current student-athletes is a fantastic workplace quality.

Incidentally this is developed when you’re about four rounds deep into a five round distance main set on a Wednesday morning practice when you’d rather be asleep for another four hours with the rest of the world. But alas, the work doesn’t do itself and the fact that swimmers know that is really something that can set us apart.

NC: Definitely, surviving through sets that have five rounds really gives perspective on how the boring work can be the most meaningful work. Anything else you can think of that college swimming taught you?

TH: Absolutely, without a doubt failure. Man, do we know how to fail. And trust me, this is a great quality. Because of swimming I know how to aim really high, work really hard, then fail spectacularly and reassess. Let me break this down a bit more. Just because you’re eventually going to be an adult does not mean you’re going to be hashtag, flawless, so knowing how to get back up, brush yourself off and find some positives to build off of is actually a great quality to have in the workplace.

Now think back to some of those in-season meets where warmup means a million pace 50s instead of the usual two and after the race you’re not sure if you need a lifeguard to pull you out. No question I had some of those where not only was I dozens of seconds off my best time, not to mention ages away from my in-season goals, but when I got out, Kristin was always able to pull a positive as well as some realistic changes I could make before my next race. This is something I carry with me.

Not every campaign is successful – in fact some of them backfire very hard – but knowing how to first off be fearless enough to fail, then to rise from the ashes is something that separates us from many of our peers in the workplace.

And there you have it. Tara has shown us how some of the more difficult obstacles college swimming gives us, can turn into our greatest strengths in the “real world.” Hopefully we can all remember these lessons during the less glorious times we go through and strive to become better because of such experiences.

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