“I would love to make it to the Olympics,” said Culver, who has been swimming since a young child. He really began to take the sport seriously when he was 13 years old and his parents moved from Kerhonkson to New Paltz, because they wanted what they felt was a better school district for their son, as well as to provide him the opportunity to participate in swim club and varsity. “There weren’t any clubs close to Kerhonkson and there was no varsity team, so I really owe so much to my parents for making that move to New Paltz.”
He’s also very grateful to his parents for introducing him to the sport, although when he was younger, he said, he “hated it!” His older brother Corey nearly drowned at age 5. Culver said that his brother was playing with a dog; the dog jumped into a lake and he followed the dog into the water, but he “didn’t know how to swim. He almost drowned, and my uncle was the one that saw him and ran into the water and saved him.”
When his parents thought about having another child, they were determined that their child would learn how to swim. “At age 5 they forced me to take swimming lessons, which I could not stand. I wanted to play baseball and soccer, but they continued to make sure I swam on a swim team.”
After a while, he realized that he wasn’t “really good at ball sports, and although I hated swimming, by the age of 9 I was starting to have success in races, and that began to motivate me.”
When he joined the New Paltz High School team as an eighth-grader and made it to New York State’s swimming championship in the 500-yard freestyle, that’s when he began to take swimming “very seriously and train as hard as I could.” From there he continued to participate in swim club and varsity, qualifying for higher and higher-level meets. His times continued to drop in the distance freestyle events, the individual medleys and the 100- and 200-yard butterfly. By the time he was a junior in high school, he was being recruited by many Division One colleges to have them swim for their teams.
He and his parents made a list of priorities: how far away they were willing to travel to visit him and see him swim; how much money they could afford to pay; and which program, coaching staff and team would suit him best. From there they traveled no farther than six hours to dozens of colleges, and in the end, Culver chose Buffalo. “I could have gone to a school with a bigger name, but I really liked the UB program, the coaches, the team, the campus — and I was given a 75 percent scholarship to swim!”
Culver admits that he didn’t have “a great first season” at college. “I didn’t drop any time; I missed my taper [where swimmers decrease the amount they swim while increasing the intensity of their swimming prior to a championship meet to allow them to be rested, but fast]. It was an adjustment year.” By sophomore year his times were coming down, and coming down hard — all the way through his junior year, when he lowered his 500 freestyle yard time to a 4:29, when it had been a 4:33 in high school.
Knowing that a swimmer of Culver’s caliber is always training hard, the New Paltz Times asked what, if anything, he has been doing differently to raise his swim game, especially to the point where he qualified for the US Olympic Trials meet — one of the hardest meets to qualify for in the world, with the exception of making an Olympic team. “Hard work and dedication are the main things I attribute my success to,” he said. “But I’ve also made several smaller-yet-significant changes. I’ve been working on breath control during underwater sets; I’ve been stretching more, lifting more weights.”
He also said that he’s utilizing mental tactics to help improve his competitive swimming, like “visualization. I walk myself through the entire race in my mind several times before I get up to swim.” He employs meditation to get him into a relaxed, present state before his races. And all of these things put together have helped this amazing young swimmer to keep competing at higher levels and quite possibly, the highest level: the Olympic Games.
Best of luck to Eric Culver in his quest to compete in the olympics. Please note that Puerto Ricans have been citizens of the United States since 1917. There is currently no dual citizenship for Puerto Ricans, as it is a commonwealth of the United States.