Chris Salcido is a senior swimmer at The University of Tennessee. He has been swimming since he was 4 years old and swam club and high school swim team before college. Salcido knew he wanted to swim in college his freshman year of high school. 
Link to listen to the whole interview: https://soundcloud.com/stevie-turski/interview-with-chris-salcido
What made you want to swim in college?
“I guess I got to a point in my swimming career … around my freshman or sophomore year of high school. Probably my freshman year of high school because I started getting really serious and started … showing a lot of improvement. I started realizing that D1 college swimming was something that I could do, so basically when I started showing promise I really enjoyed that about myself and really wanted to reach levels that I didn’t think I could before. So I guess I got really serious about it and just figured that was something I would always do was go to college for swimming.”
What kind of training did you do to prepare to swim in college?
“In high school, it is very similar training to what I do not except I would say I was a little less knowledgeable of what was behind the training. I just swam a lot of yards, swam every stroke, did weightlifting and all this stuff outside to compliment my swimming and my training. But I guess I didn’t really have the education on what I was doing and how it was supposed to help and learn what I was supposed to improve in my swimming as I do now. So in college, I would say the biggest difference is that I know more about what I am doing and it helps a little bit with motivating me during training.”
What is the best coaching advice or lesson you have ever gotten?
“I think right around the time I got serious about swimming … I was slacking off in a practice or he (coach) could tell I wasn’t giving it my all, like 100% effort and he said the only difference between ordinary and extraordinary is the extra. He asked me ‘Do you want to be ordinary or do you want to be great, what do you want to do? Do you want to be sitting on the sidelines for everything or have people know who you are and be recognized?’ But I don’t know, it got my emotions straight and it really changed my passion for swimming. It really forced me to learn to put more heart into what I was doing.”
What has been your biggest achievement so far?
“Swimming wise I guess the highest level of swimming I’ve gotten to besides being a D1 athlete and competing at the D1 level would be National level and USA swimming National level instead of an NCAA National Level. Those are basically qualifying meets; you have to qualify for that meet and it also qualifies you to be on the US National Team. At those meets … 6 people get chosen and we have 4 people that train with us right now that are part of the National Team. It’s kind of a big deal, if you perform well at those meets then you become a big name in swimming Nationally instead of just college. There are kids that are just really fast and 15 to 18 year olds that are crazy fast that are at those meets. Then there are tons of college kids and then there are also people that are almost 30 years old that have been swimming pro forever. That’s the kind of stuff you see all the Olympians at and they have to go there and qualify for teams at those meets just like we do. I get to swim against Olympians and swim against National Champions.”
Would you want to swim in the Olympics/ are you going to try to?
Yeah of course if I had the chance to I would definitely go. I will get the chance to if I am still swimming in 2020 to compete for a spot on the Olympic team. Actually getting the spot is a little bit of a different story. National meets, like I was talking about, you have to be the top 2 in that event in the entire nation. So basically, you are the first or second fastest person in our entire country and that’s really hard to do. I’m not anywhere close to that … it sounds close. I’m within 3 to 4 seconds in all of my events but those 3 or 4 seconds are really hard things to drop. So from a swimmer perspective, I don’t see myself being first or second in Olympic trials but I should definitely be there if I am still swimming.”
StevieTurski 