BERKELEY, Calif. — "I just love being in the pool," Carr said.
Watch him glide across the lanes of competition and it's easy to see, University of California rising senior swimmer Daniel Carr was made for the water.
"I'm really excited to see where he is in the next 13 months," Golden Bears and Team USA swimming head coach David Durden said.
Colorado's Male Swimmer of the Year from 2015 to 2017 has proved he can hang with America's best. Helping the Golden Bears earn an NCAA title in 2019 and back-to-back-to-back Pac 12 championships, including winning five events in this year's competition.
"I think I'm a competitive guy," Carr said. "It's definitely not a small accomplishment to win the Pac-12 title, because the teams are just so good."
This year's NCAA Championships were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic but Carr believed his school had a "great chance" to repeat in that department as well.
While this season was filled with plenty of success, below the surface there were some difficult moments for the Cheyenne Mountain high school graduate.
"I just wasn't in a good head space for the fall," Carr said.
In the past calendar year, Carr lost his best friend to suicide and his girlfriend's sister to an unexplained Cerebral Edema.
"Luckily my teammates and coaches really supported me through it, obviously it worked out this season in the pool," Carr said.
Gone but never forgotten, the 6'4 technician used their memories as extra motivation for his ultimate goal, to swim for Team USA in the 100 and 200-meter backstroke at the 2021 Tokyo Games.
"When you start racing, competing and beating the best in the world, you start to believe you can do that more and more and that's where Daniel is," Durden said.
"That's the end all, that's the top of the top, everyone wants to be there and I have a pretty good shot of being there," Carr said.
A local star, that has grown into one of the country's best in the pool and maybe soon, the world as well.
"It has worked so far so we'll keep going with it," Carr said. "If you're not worried about your dreams, maybe they're not big enough."
