Golden Valley High School freshman Dieter Ignacio is in his happy place.
Sitting in a classroom on campus with a big smile on his face, Ignacio reminisced on a debut swim campaign that saw him make new friends and compete in the sport that he loves — all at his home school.
He said there was some pressure to go elsewhere for school due to his pedigree at Canyons Aquatics Club, but the idea of lifting the sport up at Golden Valley felt like the better call.
“I really wanted to be able to represent this school and to prove that, you know, one school doesn’t have to dominate,” Ignacio said.
Team success hasn’t quite come yet for head coach Melissa Simmons, but she did see Ignacio break every individual record and place second in the 200-yard individual medley at the CIF Southern Section Division 4 championships. He also placed sixth in the 100 freestyle.
Used to racing against his peers at the club level, Ignacio found himself competing against swimmers who were much older, some of whom were just months away from being in college.
“I wasn’t really used to that environment of racing people completely older or faster than you, so that’s something that I noticed was completely different about high school,” Ignacio said. “CIF was also a completely new environment to me, not necessarily the pool, but I feel like getting to race other high schools, or just throughout the whole section, people that aren’t in my age range — to me, that was just a completely new thing.”
If he felt intimidated in any way at the start of his freshman campaign, Simmons wouldn’t have known. By the end of April, Ignacio had broken seven of the eight individual school records, with the eighth and final record becoming Ignacio’s shortly after the start of May.
Not satisfied with just being the best at his school, Ignacio is seeking to be the best in the history of the Foothill League in two events: the 100 breaststroke, and the 200 IM.
Simmons knew about Ignacio before he attended Golden Valley, but had heard about the possibility that he could ultimately end up elsewhere. Yet there Ignacio was on back-to-school night, and Simmons was able to meet Ignacio’s parents and realize that not only was he there to swim, but also to be great at it and to be great at Golden Valley.
“I talked to his parents, and I’m like, ‘OK, he’s really here,’” Simmons said. “And so, fast forward, the biggest thing I think, when I actually saw him swim — and I’ve said this over and over, it wasn’t even seeing him swim. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, this is a kid, he can be a star here at Golden Valley.’ I’ll say it till I’m blue in the face: It was him and his parents as a whole, their character.”
The coach-swimmer relationship took off from there, with Ignacio telling Simmons about his hopes and dreams of competing in college, and possibly even the Olympics.
“He gets all giddy about it,” Simmons said in reference to going up against a tough opponent. “I get giddy because I’m a nerd about it, too. And we get giddy and, I’m like, ‘Sounds like fun, huh?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, sounds like fun.’ That’s when I knew, because, again, exactly what he says, it’s the passion.”
That passion has led to Ignacio wanting to bring in more swimmers through the Swim for Change club at Golden Valley. The goal of the club, he said, is to raise funds for all sports on campus, but also to promote the swim team.
The club is set to be active starting in the fall.
“We’re planning on hosting special events or activities that really bring people to our meetings,” Ignacio said, “and that really show them, like, ‘Wow, we have a swim team.’”
Simmons is also planning to assist in raising awareness for general education in swimming.
“You’d be amazed to really find out how many — and I know, because I’m here — how many kids, even at his age, don’t know how to swim,” Simmons said.
With a passion for swimming himself — “When you do something you love, it’s a lot easier to be good at it and kind of make it a big part of your life,” Ignacio said — and wanting others to enjoy swimming with him, Ignacio has no regrets about choosing to stay home.
“Being able to make new friends and seeing them enjoy swim, too, that makes me really happy,” Ignacio said. “And I feel like if I didn’t make the decision I made, I would just be in this endless cycle of ‘swim, swim.’ And that’s what I like about the team. It’s not all competitive …”
And if things go the way he hopes, he’ll be bringing that same passion wherever swimming takes him.
“I would really like to swim competitively in college, hopefully,” Ignacio said. “Like, best-case scenario, get recruited, one day make the Olympics, hopefully. I just kind of want to see where my life takes me. But that is definitely a big dream of mine to swim in college. I really like this sport.”
