Diving Deep: The Liam Grady Story

By SARAH CLARK
Staff Writer

In the early morning hours while students are sleeping before classes, the swim team can be found practicing as early as 6 a.m. Liam Grady, a senior at The College of Saint Rose, who has now retired from his four year swimming career, was one of those student athletes.

Grady majors in Criminal Justice with a double minor in Spanish and Religious Studies. Originally from Boston, Massachusetts, he attended an all boys Catholic school where he was the captain of their swim team in his senior year. Grady has been swimming since the age of eight, and has been a lifeguard for seven summers. He had also participated in various extracurricular activities, such as basketball, soccer, and karate, and he even played the bass in his band.

“I have made some great memories with some great people,” says Grady. After his final swim season, Grady remembers one night where his friend organized a dinner for the team since the senior boys swim meet was canceled due to weather. At this dinner, teammates shared memories with each other while eating pasta and enjoying their time together. “[During] the senior traditions is when it all starts to hit.”

Being part of the swim team has given Grady the ability to learn valuable time management skills and how to have a structured college career. At The College of Saint Rose, he has been able to gain an education while also being an athlete and tour guide—a position which he applied for his sophomore year.

“It teaches you to not make excuses and get things done,” says Grady. He is very ambitious, as he added his Religious Studies minor during his senior year. Grady acknowledged how it is not often students add a minor this far into the game, but he prefers to leave the door open for intellectual curiosity. “Everyday is an opportunity to get smarter, learn more, and be able to have conversations with people on a wide array of topics.”

One of Grady’s peers, Olivia Brooker, a junior in the Childhood and Special Education program, notes how dedicated he is to his job as a tour guide. Brooker is a lead tour guide herself, and recalls how she was leading a tour and how Grady selflessly took time out of his busy day to answer questions from a prospective student about the swim program.

“As a tour guide and friend, he is always willing to extend an extra hand,” says Brooker. She loves working with Grady, and states how his willingness to help people is one of his best traits. “He’s able to make me laugh, even when I’m not in the mood to.”

Not only has Grady had a successful swim career as an athlete at the college, he has been able to work as a lifeguard and swim instructor in Massachusetts and Albany. The passion that Grady has for swimming shows, and he proves that hard work does pay off.

“It was a lot of responsibility, but in my opinion the most fun,” says Grady. He was a lifeguard at Cape Cod for five years, and although Grady has never had to perform CPR while on the job, he recalls having to rescue a woman who was caught in a rip current. The adrenaline immediately kicked in, and Grady jumped into the water to swim her back to the shore. This is a prime example of how Grady’s training and quick thinking skills were used to save her life. “On one hand, that’s our training, obviously we should be able to save someone if the need arises. The thing is I don’t want to have to because that means someone is drowning.”

A career in law enforcement has always been a goal of Grady’s since the age of twelve. He got to participate in the Police Cadet Program, where they learned different aspects of the career, such as how to properly shoot a gun. Grady would like to start out as a police officer, and then eventually train to be a homicide detective. Currently, he is also in the recruiting process for different police departments.

Grady has developed a strong swimming career at the College of Saint Rose, as well as friendships. Taylor Casey, a senior on the women’s swim team, met Grady when they were freshmen on the swim teams. Grady was one of the first people to develop a strong friendship with Casey, and she highlights his outgoing and kind nature.

“As a swimmer myself, I can’t imagine my athletic career without him,” says Casey. She attributes her willingness to stay on the swim team to Grady, as they are always by each other’s sides. “By the time our senior year came around he became such a good role model for the younger members of the team, and there was never a practice were he didn’t greet everyone with a smile and a stupid joke.”

Despite how tired practices and classes would leave him, Grady would always push through because of his passion for swimming. Even when he graduates in May, his legacy as an athlete and student will live on, as he has made a difference to the college community. “If you can be a force of positivity and keep your mind open, you can quite literally change the world.”