May 04, 2010
Justin Vink on the path to redemption
One month changed swimmer and water polo player Justin Vink's life dramatically.
Vink, a junior at Granada Hills, had been receiving interest from Florida, Colorado, Alabama, Illinois Wesleyan, Indiana, Pacific, and Carrol University and was thrilled to "have a chance to swim at some of the best schools in the country."
But just as Justin was dreaming of life swimming in college he got a call from another swimmer on his club team.
"Justin, our coach quit"
Justin was devastated. The team and Justin tried to all stay together but they couldn't. The club team was disbanded.
It wasn't just that, there were more events that took apart his swim career. Colleges began losing their interest in the young athletic swimmer. He also was on the way back from his daily Monday - Friday swimming routines which he practices from 6 A.M - 8 A.M daily. He totaled his car on the freeway which forced him not to practice for two weeks. Justin and his new coach got into some conflicts. Things were going wrong in between them and there were misunderstanding. Justin also found his girlfriend cheating on him with another guy. Justin said "I'm done, I don't want to do this anymore."
Justin soon grew out of that statement. He said "Water Polo and Swimming are something I love and I'm going to keep on doing it till I die" Justin worked things out between him and his coach. When I asked him about his coach now he said "She's perfect, she's a great coach, and we just got into a couple misunderstanding but now we are fine again."
Justin is now back to normal, swimming his best. When we contacted Justin, he said "I'm going to play my heart out everyday, till i get the opportunity to play in college. A dream come true to me would be playing for USC, Florida, or Texas but at this point I just want to play."
While asking Justin about water polo he stated, "I love water polo, just as much as I love to swim. I'll try harder and harder for water polo teams to look at me too. It's just that this was my first season doing water polo." Justin has been doing swim his whole life.
Justin was recorded doing his record best in his events.
- 100 back - 57.5
- 100 free - 52.17
- 50 free - 22.89
- 200 back - 2:12.54
- 200 free - 1:55.97
PROFILE SUGGESTIONS
 |
| Landon Carr |
