First Person:Allison Stansberry

Sophomore Allison Stansberry, of Nashville, Tenn., swims for the Sweet Briar Vixens.

Her specialty is the butterfly, and she is ranked in the Top 10 of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference for her times in the 100- and 200-yard butterfly.

Stansberry also recently helped set a new school record in the 400 medley relay. The Vixens are 4-3 overall, 2-2 in the ODAC.

On her hometown:

Nashville is a little-big town. The population is about a million people, but it’s a very small and close-knit city for being so large.

It’s known for country music, so you grow up knowing country music. But I actually did not like country music until I came away from the city. Rock outsells country every single year in Nashville.

It’s really strange; I lived down the street from Martina McBride. Country music stars, you just don’t mess with them. It’s not like a bigger city where you would have paparazzi.

My dad (Paul) went to the church book sale and he talked to Keith Urban about the set of books.

I love living there. There’s always something to do. We have a big Ethiopian population, Kurdish population, Latino population, so it’s really good.

I love going to the international markets. My dad and I go to the pasterias, which are pastry shops. They’re always pink, so you can always spot them anywhere.

(We) go and get churros. They’re these deep-fried little circles, tubes. They have brown sugar on top of them. You dip them in hot chocolate.

On choosing Sweet Briar:

I actually wanted to go to a women’s college. Women learn differently than men, and I didn’t want a lot of distraction.

I think my dad was looking in the back of the Princeton Review, and said, “Oh, Sweet Briar sounds like a good school.”

I decided to apply. It was actually the only school where I felt at home.

On learning to swim:

We had a swimming pool in my backyard, so I learned to swim when I was 13 months old. My mother (Lequida) was terrified that I was going to drown.

I had the greatest swim teacher. Her name was Miss Carolyn. She wouldn’t let the parents stay, because if the child saw her parents, she would cry.

So my parents would hide out in the bathroom of her house where she taught the lessons and video-tape me through the window with this other couple. It was really strange and funny. But it was great, because I could swim by age 3.

On choosing to swim in college:

I did club team for two years, and then I did high school. But I was never a really great swimmer.

I knew that since it was a part of my life, that I wanted it to continue to be a part of my life. And that I wanted a small college where I could swim.

Alex (Kuhn), our swim coach, it was his first year, too, so it was like a growing process together. We want to win championships.

But for me personally, I want to be the best swimmer I can be. I know it takes a lot of effort and a lot of drive, but I continue to want to do that.

I didn’t fall in love with swimming until I started to swim here. I’d never really had the environment, or a great coach, to push me toward those things. I fell in love with swimming and the team I’m on. That’s why I continue to push myself.

On swimming in high school:

My senior year I had a former NFL player for the Titans be my swim coach, which was really strange. He didn’t swim. He was a fantastic coach. Chris Sanders, he was a running back or something.

He was our track coach because he almost went to the Olympics with track. He got roped into doing swimming. Fantastic coach, but he didn’t know anything about swimming.

On her main stroke:

I do butterfly, which is hard. And your stroke changes. It falls apart and you have to rebuild it again, but you get faster.

I was really proud of myself last year because I had my best time, but then in the first meet I broke that time. (From 1:07 to 1:05 in the 100 butterfly.)

In a relay, I broke a 1:04. And hopefully in the championships I can get down to a 1:02.

(The 1:04) was really exciting. I wasn’t planning on doing that but there was a girl right next to me. It always helps when you have someone to race against and someone who’s about your time.

That’s why I like conferences, because you get put in these heats where you have about the same times. If you have no one to compete against, you don’t have as much drive.

On the team training trip:

We come back from Christmas break on the fourth (of January). We spend about a week here swimming five hours a day or so.

Then we go to Florida to a week. We’re still swimming five hours a day and doing aerobic workouts, so it’ll be hard.

Swimming sucks as a sport because you can’t take a break from it. And you have to wait until the end of your season until you see any improvement toward your goal.

In the longer events, like the mile, you can drop like 10-15 seconds. Especially because you’re racing someone.

Last year in the 100 fly, I started out with a 1:13 and ended up with a 1:07. So you just drop time.

On a Vixen tradition:

We do the “Holla, holla.” Every sports team does that. It’s at the end of the meet, and it’s telling the other team good job.

It’s a song that you chant. It’s “Holla, holla, holla, here’s to the (opponent). Nothing that you cannot do. Fighting for the good, always doing something right, here’s to the (opponent).”

We have like 20 girls on the team so when you do it you know the song.

On the best meal:

I go to Prothro, which is our main dining hall. I eat a lot. It’s not even funny. When I go home I miss Prothro. I eat a lot of protein and chicken. I don’t eat a lot of red meat and dairy.

Every single morning I have an omelet and a half of a chocolate chip waffle.

I went home for Thanksgiving, and I was like, “I really want my omelet and my waffle.”