Two months into the school year, LSU freshman swimmer Alarii Levreault-Lopez still can’t believe he’s an athlete at LSU.
Levreault-Lopez said he sometimes wakes up confused because his room is still unfamiliar, but that confusion quickly turns into happiness when he realizes where he is.
“Every day I’m still getting used to it,” Levreault-Lopez said. “I can wake up with a smile on my face, whether I’m waking up at five in the morning or 12 in the afternoon on Sundays. It’s just being happy and knowing that I made the right choice.”
Levreault-Lopez was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but his family moved to the Atlanta, Georgia, area when he was 5-years-old.
Despite being surrounded by University of Georgia fans, Levreault-Lopez said he was never a big college football fan, so he had no preference. Not only was he not a big college fan, he was also not a big fan of swimming.
“I hated swimming until I was 12 or 13,” Levreault-Lopez said. “I realized from a really young age how time consuming the sport was going to be, and how hard it was going to be to juggle an academic and social life while trying to be successful in swimming at the same time. I wasn’t very serious about club swimming, but I still got really good training and I was really fortunate to have the coaches I had on my club team.”
Levreault-Lopez’s feelings about swimming changed when he broke the club record in the 200-yard butterfly at 13 years old. As he got older, he continued to fall in love with the sport and realized swimming was what he wanted to pursue.
When it came time to start thinking about colleges, Levreault-Lopez explored his options, even visiting Yale University and Columbia University. However, junior swimmer Hannah Martin, who was in a club with Levreault-Lopez as children, told him to get in contact with the coaches at LSU. He soon found himself on an official visit.
“The environment here was just completely different from anywhere else I’d been, vastly different,” Levreault-Lopez said. “How much the surrounding area adorns LSU, how adorned LSU is not only in Baton Rouge but in New Orleans as well and different areas around Louisiana, all of the die-hard LSU fans. The team itself had a bond that I hadn’t seen anywhere else. It was really special. I loved it.”
Levreault-Lopez said the coaches were welcoming and enthusiastic, but also serious about finding a spot for him on the team. His visit ended up being a success, and he committed to LSU two days later.
The coaches aren’t the only welcoming ones on the team, he said. The upperclassmen are supportive, and he already has a close bond with his teammates. They even cheered him on while he competed against them in the Purple and Gold Intrasquad meet, where he took first place in the 200-yard fly and the 1000-yard freestyle.
“As freshmen, we all thought we kind of had a chip on our shoulders,” Levreault-Lopez said. “Hopefully we could try to swim well and prove to the older guys and the coaches that we weren’t afraid to try to get in there and show off and see what we can do as freshman. I just wanted to let loose and have fun with it, which is easy when you’re racing next to your teammates and basically your brothers that you live with every single day.”
Levreault-Lopez’s goals for his freshman season are to get as close to the 200-yard fly team record as possible and go to the Southeastern Conference Championships.
He also wants to create a positive energy on the team that shocks people going into championship meets.
“I think we as a family are just going to have a really good year, and I just want to keep the momentum going as a teammate, and as a unit as a whole,” Levreault-Lopez said.
He has one more personal goal — a goal that perhaps could be considered vengeance.
Levreault-Lopez holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and Mexico. Last December, he competed in Mexico in the short course national meet, where he got second place in the 200-yard fly behind Angel Martinez. Because of his competitive nature, when he had another chance this past summer to earn a victory, he took it.
However, despite earning a first-place finish this time around, Martinez, who now swims for Texas A&M University, was not there.
“I have unfinished business with him,” Levreault-Lopez said. “Right now, he’s swimming for Texas A&M, so I think we’re going to be meeting a couple more times before our swimming careers are over. Texas A&M is a big rival to LSU, so I would like to settle the score against Angel this year. Also, I think we’ll definitely be competing in Mexico this year to see how the Mexican Olympic trials go.”
LSU swimming coach Dave Geyer is supportive of Levreault-Lopez’s plan of trying out for the Olympics.
“At the beginning of the year, I sit with the athletes and just go over the year plan, and obviously with an Olympic year there’s a focus on that, too,” Geyer said. “So we’re just figuring out the right path and the right balance we’re trying to keep with the NCAAs. It’s fun. It’s great for our program when that does happen and if it does happen, to get that international recognition and having Olympians be a part of our program.”