For someone who said she “didn’t like water” when she started swimming, one Iowa State swimmer has definitely overcome her fear.

Angela Arias, one of four seniors on this year’s squad, said she “hated swimming” when she first began the sport over 10 years ago.

“My dad told me I had to learn to swim, and I’d be done when I learned,” Arias said. “When I learned, I decided I liked it.”

Arias was born in Venezuela and came to the U.S. in 1991 when her father began work on his Ph.D. at ISU.

“I think Ames is great — except for the weather,” Arias joked.

She chose to attend ISU because she was given an opportunity to swim. Arias considers swimming collegiately her proudest athletic accomplishment.

“Back home, we don’t have sports in college,” Arias said. “Swimming wasn’t something I was going to do if I attended college back home.”

Of her personal goals this season, she says the most important goal is to improve her 100-freestyle time.

Arias has clocked the fastest time (:25.31) for the Cyclones in the event already this winter and hopes to do even better.

Arias said this year’s team is much more family-oriented than it has been in the past, and she credits the Cyclones’ new coach with the change.

Coach Duane Sorenson was hired last summer to replace former Cyclone Head Coach Ramsey Van Horn, whose contract was not renewed after 17 years at the helm.

Arias said she was “a little nervous” going into the season with a new coach.

“I was kind of afraid of how I’d interact with Coach Sorenson,” Arias said. “It wasn’t very hard once I got to know him. He’s a great person to talk to, and it’s easy to communicate with him.”

In her spare time, Arias works at the Intensive English Orientation Program (IEOP). She performs a variety of tasks, including driving international students to the bank, taking them shopping or sorting out applications for entrance to ISU.

“Sometimes it’s hard for students who don’t have cars to get places, especially in colder months,” Arias said.

The Cyclone swimmer will graduate in marketing next December and plans to “find a job here in the U.S.”

If that is not a possibility, she says she would be “more than glad to go home for a couple of years and come back for a graduate degree.”

It doesn’t seem as if Arias is afraid of anything anymore.