Brotherly Bonds: The Driving Force Behind Dylan Gravley’s Swimming Career

(Photo: Casey McNulty/Sun Devil Athletics)

Throughout the vibrant city of Las Vegas, residents and tourists alike can find various outlets of entertainment to fill their time. From shows to gambling, the city stays alive day and night. The vivid scene is an escape from reality and a way to detach from everyday life.

Twenty minutes from Sin City is the town of Spring Valley. What some see as an extension of Las Vegas and a place to continue the festivities, senior Dylan Gravley and his brothers, Brennan and William, call it home.

Dylan and his brothers grew up with their two parents, Dwight and Michelle Gravley. From a young age, swimming has always been a huge part of the Gravley brothers’ lives. Their father implemented the sport in the family as a way for the boys to get some exercise.

“It started with my father, he was a swimmer when he was young,” Dylan said. “He decided that it was a great sport for overall fitness and health and also a great way to make friends.”

While swimming was initially introduced to the Gravley brothers for its health benefits, the sport became much more. This leisurely exercise turned into hardcore training, and countless days and nights were spent at the pool. Soon enough, competitive swimming became the standard for the Gravleys, and lucky for them, they excelled at the sport.

Being around each other 24/7 at home and in the pool caused the brothers to play a role in shaping each other’s swimming careers. This was especially prominent for Dylan since he was the youngest of the three and the last to start his competitive swimming career. He remembers his oldest brother, William, who also goes by Billy, as more mature. On the other hand, Dylan used to clash with Brennan despite looking up to him because they were around the same age.

“Billy, he was primarily a caretaker role…he truthfully spent most of his time studying and extracurricular activities and swimming,” Dylan said. “Brennan, when we were younger, was a bit different than it is now. We didn’t get along so well just because we were close in age and we interacted with each other so often and did the same things…but he was always a great role model.”

Although Dylan was the last of his siblings to dive into the sport, he always knew he would end up pursuing competitive swimming because he wanted to follow in his brothers’ footsteps.

“I didn’t really think twice because I have two older brothers, my oldest brother had been swimming for a few years and my middle brother had been swimming for a couple years as well,” Dylan said. “I was just following suit and seeing if I could take after my brothers I loved so much and wanted to be like.”

Dylan and his brothers spent their time training alongside each other on the Sandpipers of Nevada, a nationally recognized swimming club based in Las Vegas. The club has produced some of the fastest swimmers in the world, including Olympians.

The Sandpipers were the foundation of all the Gravley brothers’ swimming careers. As a globally recognized club, the brothers were almost guaranteed to blossom into elite swimmers. They did just that as Brennan swam at the University of Florida while William swam at Johns Hopkins University. With Dylan being the youngest, he felt the weight of the expectations of his older brothers’ collegiate success while training with the Sandpipers.

“There were points where I did question whether or not I could go through with swimming simply from the standpoint that I wouldn’t be living up to the expectations that my hardworking and diligent brothers had set for me,” Dylan said.

Through Dylan’s time with the Sandpipers, the club provided him with the training he needed to work toward his brothers’ expectations of him. Although his main goal was to make it to the collegiate level and make his brothers proud, he learned some important skills from his club team that he will carry with him for a lifetime.

“The set of ideals that I gained on the Sandpipers set me up pretty well for life,” Dylan said. “Very discipline-oriented, and to get through to the top of the club, you have to be very determined and want to win and do anything to get your hand to the wall first. I wouldn’t have it any other way, honestly.”

Dylan’s hard work with the Sandpipers paid off when he officially committed to swim collegiately at Arizona State in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the pandemic protocols, Dylan never took an in-person recruitment trip to ASU, and his version of a recruiting trip to Tempe was going to his brother Brennan’s official visit a few years prior.

It seemed everything was falling into place for Dylan. He committed to swim collegiately and began to walk the same path his brothers did. Still, something was off. After training rigorously for years to reach the collegiate level, one thing was missing: Dylan’s passion for racing. There was no doubt he enjoyed practicing and pushing his body to its limits. However, he struggled to find the motivation to compete.

“Before I had gotten to college, I had some trouble stepping up on blocks and racing because I was having a hard time finding passion when it came time to perform,” Dylan said. “No problem with practice, but stepping up on the blocks and racing was hard for me.”

Dylan refused to let this small bump in the road set him back. Once he arrived at ASU, everything in his racing routine changed for him. A once flickering flame of passion erupted into a full-on inferno as he began to find his knack for competing again, thanks to the support from all his new teammates.

“Once I got to college, it was like I flipped a switch and didn’t even think twice,” Dylan said. “I had all these people around me who were counting on me and who I was so fond of. It is not a problem for me when I get up on the blocks and race because I’m racing for all my beautiful teammates and the people I care about so much.”

Dylan credits his swimming success and ambition in college to the struggles he experienced before arriving in Tempe. The fact that both his brothers swam collegiately also played a role and made him a better swimmer.

“I think it was good for me to have that sort of struggle,” Dylan said. “I think that’s a blessing in disguise. If my brothers haven’t done it before me, I might have been less inclined to shoot for the stars.”

Not only have Dylan’s brothers pushed him to pursue swimming at the highest level, but they have also introduced him to another avenue of the sport: open water swimming.

“On Sandpipers, my oldest brother was actually the first guy to start doing open water swimming competitively on the national level,” Dylan said. “He kind of started getting the ball rolling in that regard and by that time my brother Brennan and I were hitting smaller meets.”

Open water swimming differs from swimming laps in a pool, as competitors race in oceans or lakes. The sport requires more grit, mental toughness and discipline because swimmers swim for hours in the middle of the sea, and races span multiple miles. These are just a few factors that drew Dylan in.

“There was a strange attraction to it for me,” Dylan said. “The distance allowed me to catch some guys that I wouldn’t normally be able to catch in the restrictive distance of the pool. I was always looking forward to my next chance to race in open water to see if I can beat guys that I couldn’t beat in the pool.”

Dylan enjoyed the challenge of open water. Initially, he wasn’t as fast as his competitors, but that didn’t discourage him. Slowly but surely, his open water skills improved, and he became one of the top open water swimmers in the nation, thanks to the help of his older brother Brennan.

“I was constantly in contact with Brennan,” Dylan said. “Something that helped me quite a bit as I got into the junior national and national stages was watching film. Frequently, I would use most of my time watching my brother swim and how he approached the race. I knew Brennan was cut from the same cloth as me, and I wanted to see how he did it.”

Dylan and Brennan competed in multiple international open water competitions alongside each other. Most notably, Dylan won bronze in the men’s 10-kilometer race at the US Open Water Nationals in April 2023, right behind his mentor and brother Brennan, who took silver.

“I think we really enjoyed the endurance aspect of it. That kind of mental stability that’s required for it,” Brennan said. “It’s not so much the foundational how fast you are for a short amount of time, but how tough and mentally focused you can be for a long amount of time.”

However, Dylan experienced one of the greatest setbacks of his life and swimming career the year prior. In December 2022, Dylan suffered a collarbone injury. His injury prevented him from training and competing in the sport as usual. As for any athlete, the sport they take part in is their whole life. When it is taken away, they lose a sense of who they are, and Brennan saw this happen to his brother.

“I remember coming back for Christmas and seeing the look on [Dylan’s] face and how tired he was and how much pain he was in,” Brennan said. “He’s a smiley kid and just to see him kind of broken down and really sad about it. I knew he was going through it because he can really put on a face for anything.”

Dylan’s injury took a toll on his mental and physical health, and he needed all the support he could get. Brennan was constantly staying right by Dylan’s side to help his brother have a healthy and supportive recovery.

“Brennan, at that time, was always a shoulder to lean on,” Dylan said. “He was always reaching out to me, checking in, seeing how I was doing because he understands that injury is a tough time in swimming.”

A few months after Dylan’s injury, he managed to swim at the Pac-12 Championships in March 2023, helping the team to its first-ever conference title. While this feat would have seemed impossible when Dylan first got injured, Brennan’s support allowed Dylan to show his strength as a disciplined athlete.

From his brothers’ expectations to the examples they set in the pool, Dylan achieved success at ASU and in open water competitions. The senior just completed his final year swimming for the Sun Devils and is grateful for the opportunities the team has given him. Still, it wouldn’t have been possible without the influence of his brothers, who push him to be the best version of himself he can be every single day.

“I’m more than lucky to have both of [my brothers],” Dylan said. “I’m just grateful they laid it out for me because it makes it feel easy for me, and I didn’t even have to think twice.”