Freshman year brings a host of life changes for college athletes, but University of Northern Iowa's Olivia Chambers had an additional life change to reckon with her freshman year: She had recently become blind.
At 4 years old, Chambers dove into competitive swimming. By 7 years old, the Little Rock, Arkansas, native broke a state record for the 500-yard freestyle for the 8 and under division.
Chambers has always found solace in the water. The 5-foot-5 swimmer said the sport releases all of her energy and relieves her stress. She knew she would swim in college, and she dreamed of becoming an Olympian.
Then, at 16 years old, Chamber's vision felt normal one moment and blurry the next. She visited the optometrist, who diagnosed her with accommodative spasms but assured her she had nothing to worry about. Yet even with the prescribed eye drops, her vision deteriorated.
Chambers kept swimming. She received offers to swim collegiately and often downplayed her visual impairment. She committed to swim for the University of Northern Iowa because she loved the team atmosphere and her coaching staff.
Yet after visiting multiple specialists, she learned she would never regain her vision. Her senior year of high school, doctors declared her legally blind. After this life-altering diagnosis, Chambers packed up all of her belongings and started her freshman year of college.
"A lot of parents probably would have just gotten really scared to send their child 11 hours away from home for college after they've just gone blind," Chambers told Team USA. "But my parents trusted me and trusted who I was around and let me do what I wanted to do with my life."
When Chambers got to Cedar Falls, she made the transition to being a collegiate student-athlete while grappling with a change in her identity and ability. Yet Chambers did not go through these changes alone.
"I have better coaches and teammates than I ever could have asked for," Chambers said. "Especially when I first came, I had not accepted the fact that my sight was never going to come back and that I would be visually impaired for the rest of my life. But they really helped me embrace who I was now and really encouraged me to take the next step of doing para swimming, which has led me to all these amazing opportunities that I would never have gotten if they hadn't encouraged me, or if honestly, I hadn't even become blind."
She has a strong relationship with her teammates. Chambers, a self-described "goofy person," even said that she and her teammates will joke about her blindness to an extent.
"But they will defend me whenever someone else is making fun of me, so that's just really nice to have people who are there for me whenever I need them," the Missouri Valley Conference's Most Courageous Award winner added.
Diving into community: "(My university coaches) just motivate me and push me to keep going." (Photo by Laura Wolff)
Chambers initially struggled with learning to ask for help as she adapted to swimming without her eyesight. Her coaches recognized this and made small changes to help her out. She can't see the clock well, so her coaches count down her intervals and tell her where to go. Instead of just writing the workouts on the whiteboard, the coaches huddle the team together to read and explain the drills.
"It could be an inconvenience to them, but they don't care at all. The coaches have been amazing so far with just understanding that coaching me is going to look a little different with my disability," the 21-year-old senior said. "They just motivate me and push me to keep going."
Still, Chambers had one more major change in her swimming career: transitioning to para swimming. At first, Chambers refused to become a para athlete.
"'Nope, I'm not gonna do it.' Again, I had not accepted the fact that I was blind, and it wasn't until after my freshman year conference (meet), my coaches sat down, actually with my mom at first, and was like, 'I think this is something that she needs to do and something she can excel at.'"
After the Missouri Valley Conference championships her freshman year, Chambers officially made the decision to become a para athlete.
Chambers swiftly climbed the ranks of para swimming. The same year she became a
para athlete, she shattered a 10-year-old time for the 400-meter individual medley. Three months later, she began her international debut at a world series event in Mexico. Two months after that, the then-sophomore earned three medals at the U.S. Paralympic Swimming Championship and was named swimmer of the meet.
Para swimming gave Chambers a renewed sense of confidence in the water. In fact, she now beats the times she set before losing her vision.
As Chambers prepares for her first Paralympic Games, she reflects on her gratitude for her coaches for encouraging her to become a para athlete.
"(My coaches) said I could go far with this, and I believed them and I'm really glad they did," Chambers said. "They have encouraged me and helped me every step of the way."
