Junior Kindsey Joyce has an impressive resume: she’s a state team swimmer, she’s a school record holder, and she’s a student in the Health Sciences Academy. Now, she adds another accolade to that list: state champion.

At the NSAA girls’ swimming championships in February, Joyce dominated the competition en route to a victory in the 100 backstroke. Her backstroke time was the fourth-fastest in Nebraska history. It was also among the four school records she shattered at State Championships. 

Joyce has a winning attitude. She effuses confidence in everything she does, yet she is always very humble about her accomplishments, as if she’s always looking forward towards the next one. Swimming is a sport that is as much mental as it is physical. Your mindset can make or break your race, especially in a highly technical stroke like backstroke. When asked to describe her mindset going into her record-breaking race, Joyce described it as “manifesting a win.” 

“It’s not a guarantee that you’re going to win,” Joyce said, “It’s not a guarantee that you’re going to have an amazing race or you’re going to cut time.” Despite this, she maintained her signature confidence. “I was going to win,” she says, “probably.” 

“I don’t think I was rehearsing what I was going to say on the podium,” she says, showing her humble side.

Joyce’s mentality of being confident in herself and always looking ahead to the next challenge is taken from an idol of hers, the late Kobe Bryant. 

“In a lot of interviews, he basically says “The job’s not finished,” and so I think I approach it like that,” she said.

And, for Joyce, the job is not finished. She fell just short of the state record, which she wants to break in her high school swimming career. She also finished just three tenths of a second short of the time to qualify for Junior National Championships in December, another goal of hers.

So, she’s going to keep training just as hard as she did this year. Another trait that Joyce possesses is her drive to go above and beyond her expectations in order to be the best swimmer she can possibly be. Since she is in the Health Sciences Academy, which meets at Horizon, Joyce was unable to participate in swim team’s morning practices. Most swimmers would gladly accept that as an opportunity to get out of early morning weightlifting, but not Joyce. She would come in before all the other swimmers in order to get a full practice in before she had to leave for Horizon.

“Like, 40 percent of my workouts were by myself,” Joyce recalls.

She also practiced regularly during the spate of snow days in early January. 

“Throughout high school season, when practices got canceled, I would go and do some swimming on my own,” she said.

It is through this combination of a winning attitude and work ethic that promotes improvement, that Joyce Joyce finds her success. It has made her a state champion and one of the greatest girls’ swimmers in Millard South history. However, Joyce isn’t going to brag about it. She’s already got her focus on being even better next year.