Meet Senior Francesca Smith

Seventeen-year-old Francesca Smith, a senior at Arrowhead High School, has resided in Wisconsin for twelve years after moving from Georgia. This year is her final year at Arrowhead.

Growing up, Smith attended Stone Bank School, which teaches Pre-K through 8th-grade students, before coming to Arrowhead. 

Smith has swum for ten years and swims nearly all year while enjoying swimming in school and club seasons. This year, she finished off her final high school swim season as a State Champion. She and her teammates won first at the 2022 Girls Swimming WIAA Division One State Championships. 

“It was sort of surreal because we had gotten second the past three years, so to finally win was surreal,” Smith said.

With much photo evidence of tears of joy from Smith and her teammates, she ended the season on a high. 

At state, she swam the 100 Free, 200 Free, 200 Free Relay, and 400 Free Relay. She says her favorite event is the 200 Free because she’s the only one that swims it on Arrowhead’s varsity team. She’s been competing at the varsity level all four years of high school. 

In her junior year, she broke Arrowhead’s 200 Free record. This year, her senior year, she broke her own 200 Free record again, along with the 200 Free Pool, 200 Free Relay, and 400 Free Relay records. 

She broke her own previous 200 Free record of 1:48.97 from 2021 with 1:45.25 (finishing 2nd) at state this year. After breaking her own, and multiple other Arrowhead records, Smith says she was ecstatic. “I was really excited, I knew I could do it, so it was nice to see that all my hard training paid off.” 

Throughout her high school swim season, her after-school schedule consists of roughly two-hour practices and occasional lifts, to school work at home. After her high school season comes to an end, she usually manages the boy’s swim team for about two hours as well. 

On November 9th, various Arrowhead students signed their National Letters of Intent to attend their desired college or university. Smith signed to continue her academic and athletic career as a tiger at the University of Missouri.

“I’m really excited to go to Mizzou, I’ve been waiting for a year to officially sign. So now that I am signed, I’m excited because it’s one step closer to getting there,” Smith says.

After her four years of college at Mizzou, her main plan is to go to law school. If she doesn’t pursue law school, she would like to either go into business or possibly move out of Missouri. 

A fun fact about Smith is that her favorite subject is either macroeconomics or any social studies class. When she is completely done with her academics and athletics, she wants to become a corporate lawyer. 

Looking towards the end of 2022, Smith says, “I’m looking forward to competing at Nationals in Texas in December from the 7th to the 10th. Otherwise, Christmas.”