HAMILTON, Ont. — Brady Lewison has been swimming for as long as he can remember, noting that "I was learning how to swim ever since I could walk." He has been following in his mother Maria Macpherson's footsteps, a former competitive swimmer who represented Jamaica internationally as a member of their National team. Similar to his Mother, Brady has also experienced success as a member of the Jamaican national team, even traveling to Israel in 2023 to attend the World Aquatics Junior Swimming Championships. 

Despite an extremely successful club swimming career, Brady has his sights set high noting "International meets have always been kind of the goal of mine. Ever since I was younger and then to actually be able to do it at a world stage, like world juniors, was pretty good."

To Brady, his first year swimming at McMaster has brought on both familiar and unique experiences. His entire club swimming career was spent with one team, the Golden Horseshoe Aquatic Club, who primarily trains in the Hamilton, Burlington, and Dundas areas. This club was also founded by McMaster Swimming's current head coach, Grey Fairley. Grey has been involved in Brady's swimming for the entirety of his career "he's kind of been there with me the whole time, while I've been setting my goals, and now that I'm competing here at Mac."

Additionally, through McMaster Swimming's annual training camp, hosted in Jamaica this year, Brady was able to bring together both worlds from his swimming. "Just being able to kind of also show the people back home who I train with and what environment I'm surrounded with every day at Mac."

Brady also found it meaningful to help facilitate this experience for the older athletes on the McMaster team. "Honestly, all the athletes that are older than me, I see as kind of different mentors in different ways. There's some that just personality wise, I aspire to be like, there's some that maturity wise, I aspire to be like… they all have different aspects that kind of piece together."

Another piece of the puzzle that Brady has inherited from his Mom's commitment to the sport is inspiring the next generation of young athletes through coaching and giving back to the sport he loves so much. "I actually love it. I don't like getting in the water sometimes. But other than that, I love it… I'm coaching our younger ones, the novice to junior devos. And I find that most of them actually want to be there. Instead of how I was at that age, I did not want to be there at all. But it's definitely rewarding to see their improvements. And then they're also so grateful to have those improvements. They don't really realize it, but then their parents will come up to me and be…, oh, this is so great, whatever. So then it's just nice to kind of get that feedback."

In only his first year at McMaster, Brady has already seen success, contributing to a Men's team bronze at the OUA championships. He qualified for two finals including both the 50 and 100 metre backstroke events. However, the biggest success of the meet for Brady was earning two medals in the 4 x 50 Medley and 4 x 100 Medley relays in which he swam the backstroke legs.

Brady highlighted his experience at the OUAs as one of his favorites from his time at McMaster. "OUAs, the men's team came third overall, and I had won medals on the relay teams in the 4x50 and 4x100 medley. But seeing everybody get a medal around their neck at the same time, and kind of just sharing that experience together was a big moment for me, especially being my first year never having OUAs or anything like that before…. So it was kind of a new experience and an experience I could learn from a lot, but definitely that aspect of the whole team getting a medal and everyone kind of sharing that achievement was probably one of my best memories so far."

Additionally, the 4x50 Medley Relay also broke the Marauder school record. The new record (1:39.71) bested the old record by over half a second and was set by Daniel Chernin (25.14), Hayden Yeung (27.43), Brady Lewison (24.57), and Josiah Terejko (22.57). The old record (1:40.31) had stood for more than ten years and was set at the OUA championships during the 2013-14 season by Eric Anderson (25.85), Konrad Bald (27.24), Mohmed Eldah (24.64), and Matthew Vogelzang (22.58). 

Despite his success early in his university swimming career, the journey has not always been a clear path towards varsity swimming. "In grade 10, I took some time off. And that was more because I wasn't sure if I was doing it for myself or if I was doing it for everybody else. So I took some time off, and then, six months later, I decided to come back and just kind of try it out with no pressure… At that point, I wasn't sure if I was going to swim in university, and it was kind of more of swimming just to see if I still liked it or see if I didn't. And then after a while, I think. I just stuck with it, and then it kind of just came about that I swam in university. I had the times that coaches wanted, so I kind of just kept going with that... But yeah, there was definitely a moment where I was unsure if I was going to swim in university, but over time, I overcame that."

Coming off these big successes this season in only his first year at McMaster, Brady has his sights set high for the future. "I do always want to go further. My goal is to go to the Olympics one day. Hopefully in 2028, so I'd still be at McMaster. But that's the goal we've kind of set right now."

Next up, Brady has his sights set on the U SPORTS swimming championships being held at the Markham Pan Am Centre in Markham, Ontario from March 12 to 14.