Similar to 2,000 other students at Lane, Aidan Ledezma is a student-athlete. He has been a part of the Boys Swim team since freshman year and is currently a JV butterflyer. 

He has been swimming since he was eight years old, as his mother forced him to, but he soon found that swimming began to grow on him. 

Early on in his high school career, Ledezma, Div. 185, knew he would want to try out for the swim team. He began to learn how to balance his course load and his sports, which has allowed him to become a solid A-B student, as he says, and now a rising leader on the team.

As Ledezma came into his junior year, he began to develop his leadership skills with a little help from his coach, Ms. Saylor. 

“He worked with some of the freshmen who came in swimming butterfly. I would set up the lanes, I tried to do it once a week, where Aidan and another swimmer on the team who is a butterflyer could be mentors to the other students,” Saylor said. 

Ledezma certainly leads by example because of his firm focus on his goals. 

This year, he sought to break one minute on his 100-yard butterfly stroke. 

Although he was unable to reach his goal, he was still able to cut two seconds off his time from last season, putting him just one second away from achieving it. 

“To break a minute in swimming—it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re fast, but depending on what event it is, like the fly, it is impressive,” Ledezma said. 

Ledezma truly demonstrates a mind over matter mindset, seeing as he swam throughout this season with a protruding collarbone due to breaking it this past summer. 

Ledezma’s injury aside, he was still able to improve greatly from last season. 

“I made a bunch of new personal bests and improved on all my times,” he said. 

He improved his 100-yard freestyle stroke by three seconds, hitting just 0:57, and also hit 0:25 for his 50-yard freestyle. 

As a junior, Ledezma has started to think about and look at colleges. 

Like any student athlete that has been participating since a young age, he had to think about whether he would like to compete at the collegiate level. 

Since he is looking to go into Physics as well as Pre-Med in order to become a Physician’s Assistant, he feels it is best for him to focus on school. 

However, he is considering participating in club swimming rather than joining a college team. Currently, he is looking at the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and the University of California San Diego. 

At this point in time, Ledezma is recovering from his injury, as he has just undergone surgery on his collarbone in hopes of being able to participate in Boys Water Polo this coming spring.

Nikita Kravstov, Div. 154, is Aidan’s teammate and friend of four years, and can attest to how nothing can keep Ledezma from putting his all into sports. 

“He always sets a goal in the beginning of the season, whether it’s going sub minute in the 100 Fly, he just always goes for that goal. That’s how he always strives,” Kravstov said.