Aidan Dold (’22) started swimming when he was 3 years old at his neighborhood swim club. However, Dold started swimming year round for SJAC when he was 9. Dold’s favorite stroke in swimming is freestyle, which is also his best stroke. Dold claims “swimming for East has been extremely fun because [he] feels like [he] is swimming for something bigger than [himself].” Throughout the swim season, the Cherry Hill East team meets for lunches in school. They also have pasta parties before meets and sometimes have dinners after the meets which makes the team very close with each other by the end of the season. In addition, everyone knows each other well. Dold shares that he has “always tried harder in the high school meet because [he] knows [his] teammates depend on [him].” Aidan’s favorite memory from swimming with the East team was winning the state title for the second year in a row when it was his sophomore year.
Dold had a long, but fun recruiting process. “It was very intimidating for me at first because I didn’t really know how to send or respond to emails that college coaches were sending me,” Dold remarks. As Dold began to talk to the coaches more, he got more comfortable and confident in his responses. He considered many options and seriously considered both F and M and Middlebury before he chose Washington and Lee University as the college that he will swim at for the next four years. Aidan visited those three schools and met with the teams there to better make the perfect decision and see where his future would be the most successful before he made his decision on swimming as a future Trident.
Dold states that he did not have one person that inspired him to swim due to the fact that he has always liked the sport from a young age and is happy that he decided to continue to do it throughout high school and now will do so in college.