I was standoffish at first, but they opened me up because they wanted to get to know who I was. Without AVS, I would have dropped out of school.

AVS has a philosophy of people first, not grades or accomplishments. I now look at my kids that way -- kids first. It's not about their disability or their ability to accomplish anything. It's about who they are.

I was bored. I didn't like the time constraints, and the assignments seemed tedious and redundant.

It's really fun to see something like that happen to a person who's dedicated, committed and [who's] put the work in.

We've swam every school we need to except Blue Springs, so we know going up there we're not the fastest team, but there shouldn't be anyone there that should surprise us.

With this team, they want to have their best time, but they want the state points for Cape Central. We want to race the fastest guys there and get as close to them as we can. We think our relays can race right there with them.