By Chelsea Howard, GoPSUsports.com Student Staff Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - To motivate the athletes during preseason and into the season, head coach John Hargis drew inspiration from the former football player Eric Thomas.

He shared the idea behind what it means to have a "why" with the swimmers and divers and encouraged them to find the reason as to why they get up every morning and continue to train at the level that they do.

Hargis creates a theme every year that provides guidance towards what the athletes should be striving towards to achieve the goals they have set for the end of the season.

"You go back and look through all the one's I've used, they all kind of add up and stack upon themselves and they all kind of mesh in the same way," Hargis said. "This year whether it be sacrifice or whether it be using why, we got to have a why."

Hargis and the student-athletes explain more about what "having a why" means to them and how they use it to motivate themselves each and every day.