Arvada West High School senior Saylor Swanson has had no lack of attention throughout her high school career; She has all the trophies, awards, titles, and media recognition to prove it.

 Taking part in the A-West Varsity flag football team and the varsity basketball team, Swanson has cultivated a notable athleticism throughout her time in high school, so much so, that the Denver Post writes that “years from now, when records have been broken and re-broken, and high school dynasties are set in stone,” Swanson and fellow Flag Football teammate, Sara Walker “will be remembered.”

Though the Post may make a point, as Swanson has cultivated prestigious awards such as the 2023 Denver Broncos Gold Belt award, and according to 5280 magazine, was a key player in leading her flag football team to win the 2023 State Championship, as she reflects back on her high school career as an athlete nearly at it’s close, Swanson would counter this remark on her legacy.

“I don’t want to be remembered for the awards I got or anything. I just want to be remembered  as a good person and a good teammate,” she states.

History with Sports:

Whether it be in sports or even in classroom activities, Swanson says that she has always been a competitive person. One of the first places she found her competitive nature was in her backyard, where she used to throw a ball with her dad and older brother. It was the rivalry between her and her older brother that “really sparked my love for sports because I always wanted to beat him. And he never cut me any slack;he would tackle me and go full on.”

It is the early memories playing sports with her family that filled Swanson’s childhood.She remembers one time, playing at the park with her dad, when someone came around and exclaimed “ ‘Wow she’s got an arm!’”

It wasn’t until the second grade that Swanson first began to play sports competitively in a basketball league at the YMCA. In her early days as an athlete, Swanson participated in co-ed sports, which she credits as helping her learn to play against people that were better than her.

“ My parents just believed in me and invested in me. I was able to just take my talent and run with it,” she expresses.

Flag Football:

As a kid, Swanson also participated in Flag Football, but the sport started off roughly for her.

“ I remember going out on the field and like some boy just ran through me… and I was like lying on the ground. I wanted to quit. I did not really even finish out that season,” she recalls.

But as she entered high school, flag football found its ways to sneak itself back into her life. Prior to the introduction of A-West’s Girls Flag Football program, Swanson participated as a part of the powderpuff team her freshman year, re-sparking her interest in flag football.

Her sophomore year, when the sport was officially introduced, she did not know what to expect. She compared her expectations to powderpuff, which was more casual and not a “real sport.”

Since its two-years as pilot seasons in the Fall of 2022 and 2023, Swanson, as the quarterback, had played a critical role in leading the successes of the A-West girls Flag football team. In the fall of 2022, the team won every game except for one where the team lost against Chafield High School in the 2022 state championship. Reflecting back on this season, Swanson previously quoted that the team got “ a little too comfortable,”; leading into the 2023 season, the team was motivated to avenge their loss and take the title of state champions.

The day of State in 2023 took place at the Pat Bowlen Fieldhouse, where the A-West team played against Cherry Creek High School in the final game. Swanson remembers that it felt like the other team had “all the momentum,”  since they had “just come off like a huge win against RV (Ralston Valley High School.)”  

“I was just so nervous because I was like, gosh, like we can’t lose, especially losing the previous year.”

The team went on to win state that year, with a score of 34-14. Reflecting on this moment, Swanson comments that “ I never knew when I was a little girl that I would be a state champion. So it was really special. Something I’ll never forget.” 

Winning state is what Swanson notes as the accomplishment that is most important to her because it was something that she got to share with her teammates.

Swanson’s Flag Football coach at the time and owner and organizer of Lace Up Juniors Colorado, Mario Lopez, notes the 2023 State Championship as a stand out memory with Swanson: “ She had a great tournament. I knew she was hungry to come out and win that one… I mean, it was huge. She had some interceptions on defense and her offense was just, she was dialed in. And that was probably my favorite time to coach her and see her take us to a championship on key roles on the team.” 

After winning state, the girls were welcomed back to A-West in a school-wide assembly to celebrate their accomplishment. Reflecting on this day, Swanson  remembers that she “ was kind of embarrassed. I did not know what to do. I was just smiling.”

Though Swanson considered her state win to be her crowning moment out of all of her accomplishments as a Flag Football player, Swanson and her teammates have been highlighted in a number of ways.

As a result of winning the state, Swanson was crowned the title of the Denver Broncos Gold Belt Award. Swanson was unaware that she had received the award and was surprised the day of the game when she was taken out onto the field during halftime and crowned one of the 2023 Colorado High School Football Players of the year alongside Columbine High School player Josh Snyder who received the Gold Helmet award.

Swanson’s older brother, Riley Swanson remembers this moment and says that is one of his proudest. He remarks that “seeing my little sister celebrated in front of tens of thousands of people was absolutely surreal. I was completely at a loss for words.”

“She’s representing the Swanson family name in the best way possible,” Swanson’s brother voices.

During the 2024 season, the team was also featured in the CBS production titled “Courage in Sports: Gridiron Greatness,” where CBS followed the team from practice to when they won the inaugural 5A Jeffco League Championship for Girls Flag Football. 

Among other titles, Swanson was also named a Sportswoman of the Year from Sports Women Colorado for the 2023 year.

Basketball:

Coming off the high of winning the 2023 state championship and the honors and successes that came with it, Swanson says that the win also “motivated me, basketball-wise, to just try to push through and go as far as we can, if we could win a state championship again, like that’s an experience that I want to have again.”

Swanson, who plays the position of point guard for the Arvada West Girls Varsity Basketball Team, has been involved since her freshman year; however, she originally was nervous to start because “all the seniors, they were so much bigger than me, [ and] so much older.”

Her personal highlight reel from her time on the basketball include trips to Wyoming with her team and the boys basketball team, beating  A-West rival Ralston Valley during her sophomore year, beating Valor, who at the time was the number one team in the state, during her sophomore year, and other wins against Columbine and Chatfield during this past season.

“ We basically swept the league outside of Valor and that’s the first time that has happened in a while. So we’ve had a really successful year this year, but we gotta keep going.”

The success of the A-West girls’ Basketball team, has been picked up on by local media outlets such as the Arvada Press, who notes that in this season, the girls basketball program has hit twenty wins, which hasn’t happened in the last decade.

“ I think we kind of took it upon ourselves to be like.. this is our year.”

Swanson credits the success of this year to her coach, Brady Meeks, as she says that he has been better about holding the players accountable. She says that their practices have become more competitive, and have created a culture of where “ we all just want to win.”

Meeks specifically mentions that Swanson has “been a huge reason for our success. She is one of our captains, our best scorer of the basketball team, and an elite help defender and rebounder for her size.”

This season the team also had the opportunity to play at Ball Arena in Denver. Swanson describes the day she played: “ It was kind of hard to shoot because the background was just black… it just felt like the spotlight was on us. So that game, we kind of struggled at the start but we were able to get the win.”

The highs and lows of being an athlete:

What is evident is that Swanson’s has played a key role in the success for both girls’ Flag Football and Girls’ basketball. Arvada West Athletic Director, Gordon Volk, can give a testimony to this saying that Swanson has left a “lasting impact that will be felt for years to come. It’s difficult to fully capture in words what she has achieved during her four years at Arvada West.”

Despite the success that she has had in both of her sports, such as leading her flag football team to three state championships according to Lopez and playing a pivotal role in leading Arvada West to one of “ its best basketball seasons in history,” Swanson comments about the impact that the losses she has experienced as an athlete have had on her. Specifically, she mentions the 2024 state championship for Flag Football where the team lost to Legend High School.

“ I feel like sometimes people don’t recognize. When you lose a game, how big of a toll it takes on you. People just don’t understand how much work it actually takes sometimes.”

She continues to say, “Even after last year when we lost to Legend in the state tournament, I was so sad for like a couple of weeks, and I did not really want to tell anyone.. Sometimes I feel like that happens to athletes where you just get kind of depressed.”

In these hard moments though, Swanson relies on the people around her and the fact that she gets busy to support her. “ I play a sport in each season. It’s pretty much a quick turnaround by playing the next sport.”

Other Activities:

Outside of Flag Football and Basketball, Swanson also has spent time as a part of A-West’s Pickleball team.

Pickleball has been an important part of Swanson’s high school career. As a kid, she used to play tennis with her grandpa and for a while played as a part of the girls tennis team. However, Swanson says that playing three sports was a lot, so she cut it out. When she had heard of the A-West Pickleball club, she and her older brother joined it.

For Swanson, pickleball differs from her other sports because she plays it for fun while the other two she plays competitively.

However, A-West English teacher and sponsor of the pickleball club, Karen Kramer still says that Swanson has two sides of her as a pickleball player: sweet and encouraging, or fierce and competitive.

Kramer’s favorite memories of Swanson as a pickleball player include her playing what Kramer calls the alphabet game, where players take turns hitting the ball back and forth while taking turns saying the letters of the alphabet.

Memories with Swanson:

Kramer is not the only teacher who has shared memories with Swanson. As Swanson approaches the end of her senior year, she looks back and acknowledges the many ” good teachers,” that she has had that have helped her grow.

Among these teachers and classes, she specifically names physics class with science teacher Clifton Bluhm as one of her most challenging classes and math teacher Stephanie Bashford’s Algebra Honors II class as one of her favorites.

Bashford, who had Swanson for two years in both Algebra Honors II and Pre-Calc Honors, notes that Swanson has always been a thoughtful student. Bashford has also seen Swanson’s competitive side come out in the classroom, as she recalls that Swanson and fellow classmate senior Emma Verdugo used to compete for being “math smart,” and keep track of points on the end of her white board.

Though she is competitive, Bashford also loves that “Saylor is one of the humblest humans I have met. Never would you think she was such a badass on the flag football field since she is quiet and kind in class.”

Swanson also notes that Bashford, along with science teacher Eryn Gallagher Balding, were two of the most impactful people during her time at A-West. Balding, who had Swanson in both honors biology and in anatomy, says that the first time she and Swanson had a one on one conversation, it was about their shared love for basketball. Since that moment,Balding says it has been a “privilege and pleasure to watch Saylor compete on the field and on the court many times, and seeing the pure joy of those experiences has been amazing,” such as seeing Swanson block potential buzzer beaters or Swanson’s kicking Balding’s “ butt all over the field for powder puff for two straight years.”

Balding also recalls when Swanson did a cat dissection for anatomy and named her cat Lebron, after NBA player Lebron James.

“She’s a bit of a fan,” Balding jokes.

Life after high school:

Swanson is committed to playing girls Flag Football and Basketball at a collegiate level at William Woods University. 

Though Swanson is excited to continue pursuing sports at the next level, she also notes that unlike most collegiate level sports, for Flag football, there are no divisions. Due to this, Swanson notes that there will be a lot of competition as she enters the next level of sports.

“I’m going to have to earn it and keep working really hard if I want to earn the starting job as quarterback.”

As she looks into the future, Swanson wants to make sure that she is always working hard and will never be satisfied.

“I just want to show the world that even if you’re not, I’m not the fastest. I’m not the strongest. I’m not the biggest or the tallest, but you know, you can still, you know, play with the best of the best.”