Athlete Spotlight

Athlete Spotlight: Christopher Hargraves

Mar Salinas, Photojournalist • Feb 21, 2025

Grade: 12
Sports: Water polo and swim
Positions: Team captain and driver
Age Started Playing: 16

How would other people describe you?

I’m very outgoing. I like to bring a positive attitude, and I try to push everybody to do their best.

How and why did you start playing?

Water polo seemed like a different type of sport, and it seemed like a lot of fun, and then swimming just kind of came along with it and I’ve enjoyed it.

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Describe how you prepare before a game.

Some warmups, so like we practice throwing the ball, we just do a couple warm up laps. And then we try to get ourselves out of the water, just kind of stuff like that.

What personal superstitions or traditions do you have before, during or after a game?

We like to pray before a game, just kind of pray upon a good game, and for everyone to have fun.

Tell us about your favorite memory as an athlete either on or off the field.

Well, the team’s like a family, and we like to go out a lot. My favorite memory was probably going to a party outside of school, we went over to a buddy’s house and we just kind of swam and stuff. And we had a senior that was graduating come visit, and that was fun.

Tell us the story about what you are most proud of yourself for.

Probably breaking the school record that was really, really cool, really fun. And it’s not even just the fact that I broke it, I wanted it to push the rest of the team to try to break other records and set history in the school.

Who is someone you are thankful for and why?

I’m thankful for Coach Crampton, he has continuously pushed me to be better and better. And the senior I speaked about, Marko Elvira, he kind of kept me interested in the sport itself.

What advice would you give to people that may want to play your sport?

Push yourself to do your best, even when it’s tiring, even when it sucks, continue pushing it.

What’s on your bucket list?

I would like to continue swimming and water polo in college.

Favorites

Post Game Meal: Raising Cane’s
Exercise: Reverse grip curl
Song: 5 Foot 9-Tyler Hubbard
TV Show: The Boys
Athlete: Michael Phelps
Color: Purple

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About the Contributor

Mar Salinas, Photojournalist

Mar Salinas photojournalist on Caney Creek Student Media. This is his first year on staff. He enjoys writing and would like to study philosophy in future, He also really likes seals since his dog resembles one, and overall he's a dog person. Last year he challenged himself by taking 2 honor classes and it worked out better than expected and this motivated him to keep on challenging himself academically.