One of the student athletes honored at the athletic awards ceremony last week was senior swimmer Brian Flaherty. Flaherty embodies what it means to be a student-athlete, since he excels both in the classroom and the pool but always puts the books first.
“School is definitely my biggest priority, you know that’s why you go to college, to learn and get your degree. So school always comes first, whenever there was competition for the time commitment for either school or swimming, school is always the thing I will spend the most time on,” said Flaherty.
He has been swimming year round since he was seven and said, “As the commitments for swimming have increased; the commitments for school have increased with it. So over the years just kind of gradually learning how to manage the time and realizing that if I have practice at three and I have some free time between one and three that’s when homework gets done.”
Flaherty also said that he thinks it is an advantage being a student athlete “because you can’t procrastinate as much because you can’t wait till the night before a test to do it because chances are you just won’t have the time.
Generally speaking student athletes have less trouble getting assignments in on time and being prepared for stuff and I think it’s just because we have all done it for so long.”
“What you learn here with a DU education I would put against any school in the country,” said Flaherty about his success in the classroom. “You have teachers here that want to teach the only question is do the students want to learn.”
While Flaherty has managed to keep up with his school work, he has a 4.0 GPA in molecular biology and biochemistry and received a 38 on the MCAT exam which is the highest score by a DU student in 20 years; he has also managed to maintain a strong performance in the pool. Flaherty had 19 top 10 finishes this season and was a member of the 800 free relay that set a school record in 2005. He has also been awarded one of 58 scholarships for post graduate study awarded by the NCAA.
He attributed part of his success in the pool to some competition from within DU. “Coach Henry has recruited a lot of great swimmers so every year the freshmen are getting faster,” Flaherty said lightly, “so not wanting to be one to be beat by a freshman that has definitely pushed me to go faster and work harder in practice.”
When asked about the pool after DU Flaherty said, “I will definitely keep on swimming. There is nothing like winning a race but the sport itself keeps you in great shape and for me it’s a great stress reliever, a break from classes.” And a good stress reliever will probably necessary while he is attending med school at Washington University in St. Louis where he plans on studying to become a clinical researcher for cancer.
When asked about why he wants to go into cancer research he avoided the usual response of wanting to make the world a better place and just responded honestly, “I just like the science behind the treatments for cancer that are coming out.”
With all of the accomplishments in the class room and in the pool Flaherty’s greatest accomplishment may be a surprise to some but for him it makes perfect sense.
“I have gone through four years and I can honestly say that I have done exactly what I wanted to do,” he said, “so I think my greatest accomplishment is just being able to go through four years really saying that you’ve done what you love to do. And I think that is something that a lot of people lose sight of there junior and senior year when they want to go on to a professional school they sort of tailor what they do just to get in rather than doing things that they want to do.”
As Flaherty graduates this spring and heads farther east from his home in California he will continue to do what he wants to do so that when he looks back on the next four years he will be able to say that he did what he wanted to do.
