With the NCAA championships a week away, Arizona head swimming and diving coach Frank Busch knows he has a clutch swimmer in junior Marshi Smith.
"She's a quiet warrior," he said.
According to Busch, Smith is the go-to swimmer in high-pressure, high-stakes meets, always performing her best at big meets.
Smith made an impact at the 2005 Pacific 10 Conference swimming championships on Feb. 26, taking the title in the 100-yard backstroke.
Yet, Busch says that while Smith is not someone who you would immediately look at and can see the talent, she is someone that the average person has to take a deeper look at to find the inner talent.
"It's really all about how she handles pressure, she doesn't say a lot but she always does well at big meets," Busch said.
Smith does not have to say much as her times speak for themselves. Behind the blocks Smith says she uses pre-race tactics to look as mean as possible.
"People have told me that I actually do look pretty scary behind the blocks. I just get a kick out of intimidation," Smith said.
Smith has been going off of that intimidation fuel ever since she first started swimming at the ripe age of 5.
She began competing at a nearby neighborhood pool and by time she was 7 she was breaking some of the pool's oldest records.
Smith said that after this point she never looked back and has been hooked on swimming ever since.
Fast forward to her career at Arizona, where Smith said her favorite part of being on the team is the lame jokes that the coaches make on deck.
She added that the coaches really make the team fun and provide a serious - but not too serious - atmosphere. When the jokes die down, the team gets down to business. Although, Smith said that swimming is 90 to 95 percent mental.
"We train hundreds of hours. Regardless, if you are not mentally in the right frame of mind, you just won't swim well. There is a mental game," she said.
Smith seems to have that component of competition down, seen by her quiet demeanor, and said she has learned not to hinder herself by setting expectations.
"I've learned this year that making specific expectations limits possibilities for me. I always want the team to be at its best and I want to be successful but I don't know exactly what that is. After my race I am either happy or I'm not," Smith said.
Besides improving athletically, Smith said that she has really grown as a person here at the UA.
"Frank always says that he wants us to grow as people. Only if we grow as people can we grow as swimmers. Meeting people on this team has taught me to become a better person, which leads to better swimming," Smith says.
Smith is unsure about what the future holds for her.
The marketing major said she wants to make a million dollars, but just does not know how she is going to go about it yet.
As for swimming, Smith said that it depends on how she feels after her senior year, but if she has more good swimming in her, she won't stop competing.