A legacy established

Three sisters and now a brother will swim the pools at Brigham Young University.

Brad Grant joins sisters Valynn Grant Woolley, Amanda Grant and Melanie Grant as swimmers for the BYU swim team, leaving a legacy for the Grant family at Moses Lake and Provo, Utah.

Moses Lake swim coach Tony St. Onge jokingly called the legacy established by Grant family in Moses Lake, "the Grant family swim team."

"The Grant family has had a long term influence on the Moses Lake and Manta Ray swim teams for 18 years and their parents have been heavily involved in the booster club and levy programs," St. Onge added. "They have chosen to involve themselves in programs in the community, not just swimming."

For Brad, BYU was always the option, whether he swam or not.

"I didn't really feel pressure that I had to swim, I felt pressure that if I was going to swim, I had to give it my all and try my hardest to see what I could accomplish," Brad said.

Between the three sisters and Brad, they hold eight of the 24 high school swim records at Moses Lake.

Valynn holds five of the events and Brad set the high school record for the 100-breaststroke at the state tournament held in Federal Way at the King County Aquatic Center in February. It was a 3-second drop from his previous state tournament appearance in 2003.

"I think they recognized that he dropped his time over three seconds from last years state meet and that is a really significant drop and he will continue to make those drops and be a real contributing factor for them," St. Onge said.

To assist Brad along the way to reaching a spot on the BYU roster, the Moses Lake School District finished the construction of the pool in the spring of 2003 and he began training during the summer of that same year.

With a full size pool to train in, Brad was able to reach ground with peers around the state who already had the luxury of competitive pools.

"There is more room for improvement for Brad, than there will be for 75 percent of the swimmers going to college," St. Onge added. "He doesn't have a really deep background as some of the swimmers in college, but there is more room for improvement."

Brad finished out the year as a district champion in the 100-meter breaststroke, third at state and an All-American with his time of 57.84.

"After going to state and doing as well as I did, I decided that I would like to see how I would do at college and see how far I could go," Brad said.