The journey from Tucson, Ariz., to Athens started with a simple rap.
When Ohio swimming coach Greg Werner left a voicemail on then-high-schooler Abby Corcoran’s phone and asked her to consider Ohio University, he did it in a rap. Now a senior and captain for the Bobcats, the musically inclined Corcoran said that, once she heard the rap, she was sold.
“He was the coach I wanted to call back because he left me a rap on my voicemail, so I knew from that, that this was a place that I wanted to be,” Corcoran said. “I’m all about things being different, and he definitely stood out to me.”
Once Corcoran arrived at Ohio, she made waves not only in the pool but also on her guitar.
Corcoran had always played the guitar as a hobby but did not illustrate her talents in front of an audience until she arrived in Athens.
At the urging of her teammates, Corcoran performed her first live gig at The Front Room her freshman year.
The unsigned artist released her first album, Have Wings, Will Fly, last year on iTunes. Corcoran said she is working on her second album.
Though Corcoran took some guitar lessons as a child, she said she preferred to play without the structure of lessons and proceeded to teach herself.
She started writing music at age 12 and focused on strong and insightful lyrics. Corcoran said she used her guitar to help her recover from her parents’ divorce, which happened when she was 9 years old.
Corcoran said her family’s turbulence was a strong reason why she stuck with the instrument.
“I knew I was in a position where I could either let the fact that my family was going through a little bit of a rough time make me or break me,“ Corcoran said. “I wanted to find a way to get through it, and I just know that music has inspired me to do that.”
Though Corcoran used her music for personal healing when she was younger, the child and family studies major said she now likes sharing her music because she loves to help and reach out to people.
“I want people to hear what I’m going through, and I want them to be able to relate to that on some level in some way,” said Corcoran.
Werner had only positive things to say about Corcoran, calling her a coach’s dream.
“She was someone that you could always count on to give 100 percent,” Werner said. “As I told her many, many times, she has a huge heart — not just compassion with others but her capacity to do things we didn’t expect athletically.”
Corcoran’s mother Denise Wittleder described her as a very energetic kid with an aptitude to write and remember lyrics.
“I think it’s her release,” Wittleder said. “That’s wonderful that she found that.
The things that she writes about, a lot of them have occurred with her in relationships with other people or relations with their family members.”
Wittleder said it is beneficial for her daughter to have a way other than swimming to express herself.
“Being an athlete, she has that physical outlet, but her emotional outlet and her creative outlet is that music,” Wittleder said. “And the fact that someone else enjoys listening to her — that’s just icing on the cake.”
Senior captain Kristen Witham, Corcoran’s roommate, said her experience at Ohio would be different without Corcoran.
“She’s like a vital organ,” Witham said. “I don’t think that we would have been where we are today without Abby on the team. We were a better team with her than without her.”
As her swimming career concludes, Corcoran’s 50-yard freestyle time sits in fourth place in the program’s all-time record book.
Corcoran is also part of the 400-yard freestyle relay team whose time is first place in program history.
mk277809@ohiou.edu
