Honorable Mention ranked recruit in the girls high school class of 2025 Lynsey Bowen has withdrawn from the University of Florida and is working to building her own nail business.
Bowen made the announcement on October 7th on TikTok. “I ended up going to the University of Florida to swim but I knew it wasn’t the right path for me so I decided to drop out. I never wanted to work for anyone else so what I’m gonna do is create something of my own and for me that’s nails.”
@lynseynails
Bowen has been posting on TikTok the progress of her business so far and has the goal of 10,000 followers and $50,000 so that someday she can start her own polish line. She also wants to prove to herself that she can do it. So far as of October 17, Bowen has 164 followers on TikTok with most of her TikToks getting almost 2,000 views. One of her first clients on TikTok was Olympic medalist Alex Shackell.
She represented Carmel Swim Club at the club level and last competed at the end of July at the Indiana Senior State Championships. At the start of June, she was 57th in the women’s 200 free at US Summer Nationals in a 2:05.97.
This past spring, Bowen graduated from Carmel High School and helped the team to numerous state titles over her high school swimming career. Just this past February, she swam to a state title in the 200 free posting a 1:47.89. Her lifetime best in the 200 free is a 1:45.30 from 2022 Winter Juniors-East.
She committed to Florida in September 2023 and was the #9 ranked recruit at the time after finishing her sophomore year. She fell to the #14 ranked recruit after her junior season and was an Honorable Mention ranked recruit after her senior year.
Bowen was set to boost Florida’s mid distance freestyle group that lost its top swimmer Bella Sims as she transferred to Michigan. The team’s top 200 freestyler so far this season is Lainy Kruger (1:43.69) while the top 500 freestyler is Julie Brousseau (4:40.98).
As advocates for the sport, we speak the lessons of what it means to be excellent often. To be brave, face failure, have passion, work hard, take chances on yourself, and be resilient. If a young woman wants to take that “idea” from what she learned in the sport to another endeavor we should be celebrating her.
It takes a tremendous amount of bravery to go down this path and commit to it on a public platform. Would have taken a lot less courage to stay in a sport for 4 more years and not be truly happy or fulfilled.
Her life is not subject to whatever you think is best for her because she was a talented athlete. … Read more »
As I mentioned in my previous post, finding a strong business mentor is important. But, I wanted to provide some example questions to ask yourself to better illustrate some things to think about (and this is just scratching the surface).
Here are some questions to ask yourself…
What makes your business unique? Is there something you offer that patrons can’t get from anyone else? When potential customers are evaluating your business against your competitors, what is it about YOUR business that will tip the scales in your favor?
Can your business scale? If so, what is the plan for making that happen? Suppose you get 100 orders next week. Would you be able to fulfill those orders? If not, what… Read more »
Swimming is a very challenging sport. If your heart isn’t in it, the road can be long and grueling. It’s ok to try something different.
Just like having a good coach helps in becoming a successful athlete, having a strong business mentor is equally important. Lynsey, leverage your swimming success / connections to build your network and connect with other successful small business owners. They will be a treasure trove of knowledge who can help you avoid repeating common mistakes. Maybe start with the executive team at SwimSwam…I suspect they would be open to supporting your PR efforts.
Good luck!
Good for her nailing down a new career
And yet if this was a guy instead of a girl doing this the comments would be 10 times different. They would be supporting instead of tearing down a 18 year old girl
I don’t think that’s true. The SwimSwam comments section was not kind to Aaron Shackell when he left Cal and Texas.
did he start a business?
The internet was a mistake.
When my daughter is 19, I’d rather she pursue something she’s passionate about – even if she isn’t successful right way – than spend all her time on a sport she doesn’t care for, just because she had some early success.
And shes 18
How many full grown adults here judging her because yall gotta elevate your itty bitty egos?