Before competition got started at the North Carolina High School Athletic Association 1A/2A swimming championships on Feb. 8, Woods Charter swimming coach Julie Neal presented a challenge to sophomore Daisy Collins on her target splits sheet.
“I dare you to break 200 and 500 free records!”
Once she got in the pool at Triangle Aquatic Center, to call it a “challenge” seemed like an overstatement. Collins, the defending state champ for the 500 free, shattered the 1A/2A meet records for the 200 and 500 free with respective times of 1 minute, 47.92 seconds and 4:45.36. Her 200 free time beat Emily Knorr’s (Salisbury) 2021 record by nearly two seconds, and her 500 free finish also beat Knorr’s record (set in 2021) by nearly four seconds, meeting the All-American standard for both events.
“It was definitely my goal going in to get the record,” Collins, who was named the meet’s Most Outstanding Swimmer, said. “So, when I got them, I was really excited, and so was coach Julie.”
Neal recalled a feeling of “pure elation” watching her own make history.
It’s a feeling that maybe only her and others close to Collins could experience, given they’ve witnessed Collins overcome more daunting trials on her way to becoming a three-time state champion.
Fear
After a very eventful 2024 in which she competed internationally and found herself on the same state championship stage, Collins felt “very scared” in the ready room prior to her most recent 200 free state title race.
“I think it was the most nervous I’ve ever been,” Collins said. “I think I just really wanted to get that record, and the previous year, I’d been sick during the meet. I remember I missed it, and I was really sad. I just knew I didn’t want to feel that again.”
The fear and anxiety she experienced before the race wasn’t a one-time occurrence, though. Collins usually gets overcome with nerves before competing, no matter how many times she’s won throughout her career.
“I think it’s just like the pressure, and I don’t want to let people down,” Collins said.
She deals with it by performing breathing exercises, and Neal helps lighten the mood with her quirky and silly interactions with Collins before races. Once she hits the water, all the nerves go away, which in a way serves as a reminder that she’s gotten over worse.
Collins crossed the ocean at the age of five when her family moved from the UK to North Carolina while simultaneously being a child who feared water.
“I couldn’t have baths,” Collins said. “I couldn’t wash my hands. I was so scared, so my parents were like, ‘she’s going to drown.’”
To help her stay afloat, Collins’ parents took her to a UNC Wellness Center where she first started swim lessons. It took nearly a month before she was able to get into the pool, and by the second month, she had a good feel for the water.
Her instructor at the time, a college student named Marissa, took notice of her strides in the water, and her promising prediction about Collins set her on a path as a competitor.
“She was just so kind with Daisy,” Collins’ mother, Laura, who swam in high school, said. “She said to me after maybe a month or two in, ‘She’s going to be really good.’ I just thought that meant that she was going to you know learn how to swim quickly. I didn’t know that it was going to go anywhere.”
Collins competed for the first time in the following summer season at the age of six, doing well enough to garner suggestions to swim year round. Shortly after, she found a year round home with the North Carolina Aquatic Club in Chapel Hill, where she has swam ever since and developed into one of the best swimmers in the state (ranked the sixth-best girl swimmer in North Carolina by Swimcloud).
Rough waters
Water isn’t a pushover. In large quantities, its force can bring pain, knock one backwards or prevent one from moving forward.
Collins learned that last year when she seemingly hit a wall that repeatedly lied in her path whenever she swam.
It started during the 2023 Speedo Winter Junior Championship East in Columbus, Ohio where Collins failed to meet her own standard. She finished 54th in the 400-yard individual medley, 57th in the 500-yard free and 10th in the 1,650-yard free.
“I felt horrible,” Collins said. “I did so bad. I did good at open water nationals, but then every in-pool meet, I did so bad all the time. It was really, really rough because I’d show up to practice, I’d do everything right, I’d eat, sleep, but I just would not drop.”
“I think it was a confidence thing where I was just like, ‘You’re only good at one event.’”
At the same time, Collins had to overcome emotions from trials outside of the pool.
Collins’ mother got diagnosed with breast cancer during the time Collins competed in the winter junior championships. Laura Collins told her children shortly before Christmas, and that news coupled with her struggles in the pool sent Collins to a point where she nearly gave up swimming.
“Not like I wanted to stop, but I was like, ‘There’s no point,’” Collins said.
Instead of giving up, she leaned into her coaching staff for guidance out of the choppy waters.
Talking with her main coach at NCAC, Steve Brown, and other coaches like Chris Pfaffenroth and Watts, Collins had to first learn how to have fun with swimming.
“Like you need to go into it not thinking about dropping, not thinking about anything, not thinking about where you place,” Collins said.
While understanding that concept, Brown also emphasized the importance of consistency.
“Sometimes she gets a little shortsighted with her goals,” Brown said. “It’s all about today, and I’m always like today, make it good tomorrow, and find a way to be a little bit better every day. That over an extended period of time will give you the opportunity to achieve the goals you want.”
Collins and Brown trained one-on-one two hours a day throughout August prior to her competing with Team USA at the Open Water Junior World Championships in Italy. She started seeing her times fall again, regained confidence and in Italy, she led two-thirds of the way before impressively finishing fourth in the 7.5-kilometer finals.
At the most recent Speedo Winter Junior Championship East in December, Collins finished 30th in the 400-yard individual medley, 12th in the 500 free and third in the 1,650 free.
Collins’ mother was also making strides in her recovery after two successful surgeries in February 2024. She’s now in remission after completing her active treatment, but even while going through chemotherapy, Laura Collins made the trip to Sarasota, Florida in May to watch her daughter win the junior 7.5-kilometer open water national title.
“I was in the middle of the race, and I was getting tired,” Collins said. “I was like, ‘This is so stupid. Why am I doing this anymore? I’m in the middle of a lake right now, and I’ve been swimming for an hour. I’m about to get out, like this is so dumb.’ I swam by my mom, and I saw her cheering, and I was like ‘You’re complaining right now, and your mom is standing out in the blazing heat in Florida, cheering for you and supporting you while she has just gotten the worst news of her life.’”
“I was falling back at this point. I was up there, and now I was in 20th place. It was so bad. And I saw her, and I was just like, ‘You’re going to win this for her. You’re going to do this.’ And so, I got that strength from her.”
Opportunity
Woods Charter’s swim program likely wouldn’t exist without Collins.
Before Collins, there was Maddie Homovich, a standout NCAC and Marlins of Raleigh swimmer, who graduated from Woods in 2018. She went on to have a successful swim career at Georgia, but she never got the chance to do the same in a Woods uniform.
Homovich tried to get a team going at Woods, but the school didn’t have the necessary training pool to make it happen.
“We just don’t have the money and the funds to rent pool space,” Neal said.
Collins tried again last year, anyway, this time reaching out to Woods Athletic Director Dena Floyd and convincing Neal, who also coaches at NCAC, to coach the team. There wouldn’t be any practices, and members were required to already belong to a club team, but the school was able to get five others to join Collins and compete in NCHSAA events for the 2023-24 season.
Woods likely won’t get to develop swimmers from scratch any time soon, but Collins has been trying to convince others to join the squad. She has siblings that could possibly keep the team going once she graduates in two years. Both her brother Jack, 13, and her sister Rosie, 9, swim, and Collins already coaches them on their summer team.
“It’s a great thing seeing your child being mentor to other kids,” Laura Collins said.
Collins’ ability to create lanes for others at Woods is just one of many indicators of how far swimming can take her. The past year has proven that she’s a natural trailblazer, and she still has more to accomplish at Woods and beyond.
Those closest to Collins have high expectations for her, as she does for herself. Whether there’s another record to break or another high-pressure situation to conquer, nothing seems too daring.
