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 Christian Shannon; my parents are Jon and Sally Shannon. I was born in Scarborough, Maine, “the frozen wasteland” to Texas people.
I started competitively swimming for Coastal Maine Aquatics when I was 9. My mom made me quit hockey to swim because she was sick of driving my brother and me to 2 different practices every night. I’ve just kind of stuck to it ever since.
Swimming has taught me to cope with failure, which is often hard to deal with when you put in your best effort every practice. It has taught me humility, and I have learned to respect those swimmers who are more accomplished than me. Specifically, Carroll swimming helped me transition from Maine to Texas as a freshman.
My favorite swimming memories have to start with rooming with John Ausdenmoore and Carson Henderson at the A&M meet freshman year and having to share a bed with Gator Alexander, who would randomly sit up in his sleep throughout the entire night. The 2011 State trip is one of my favorites too, with Jim Haas and Austin Johnson. We didn’t have to swim in the meet, so we were up to the early hours of the morning and then body painted for finals. Another best memory has to be being made awkwardly famous by Alex Myers as a freshman when I didn’t know anyone yet.
My worst swimming memories include: 1) having the VASA trainer collapse underneath me sophomore year and almost fracturing my wrist, 2) dropping the bar on my forehead while doing bench press over winter break junior year, and getting a huge egg on my head, 3) running into the lane line junior year at Regionals while doing backstroke and getting disqualified, and 4) the infamous soup burn Senior year.
My favorite Coach Murphy story: One time at a Mansfield Invitational as a sophomore, Murphy told me to swim as if the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders were waiting for me at the end of the pool. I told him the cheerleaders wouldn’t be my first choice, and I would prefer Nastia Liukin (famous Gold medal gymnast trained in Plano). He proceeded to tell me that Nastia was waiting at the side of the pool to give me a big kiss if I won my heat. More great stories are the countless times Murphy told the underclassmen that I used to look like “a little Polish boy who escaped from one of the Nazi concentration camps” but now I’m “swole”, as if that was a good motivation for them to lift weights.
My top college choices include Southern Methodist University, Duke/University of North Carolina (combined program), University of Texas, or Rice. I would study Public Health or Biomedical Engineering with a pre-med track and a minor in business. From there, I plan to go to med school to specialize in Oncology or Otolaryngology. There is NO way I am swimming in college.
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