JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Morgan Ray has swam thousands of laps in the pools at the Bolles School for the past 10 years.
It all led up to a ticket to Paris, where he’ll compete in at least to events to bring a Paralympic medal back to the First Coast.
Ray distinctly remembers the moment he found out he would be a Paralympian.
“Tearing up, then crying," said Ray. "A lot of my teammates that had seen the work I put in for years, they turned around and looked at me, and it just flooded in.”
The flight to Paris will take 10 plus hours, but Ray’s journey really started way back in 2002, when he was born with achondroplasia, a common form of dwarfism.
Paralympian Miranda Uhl showed Ray her gold medal when she came home from the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing when Ray was just six years old.
“I think that’s when he got the fire," said Matt Ray, Morgan's father. "We have a piece of paper at home that he wrote that says, ‘I will be a Paralympian.’”
Ray started swimming as a kid at Bolles, where his dad says he immediately had to overcome adversity.
“In a regular swim practice, the average height kids are hitting the wall and they get to rest between intervals," said Ray's father. "He’s not able to rest because his intervals take a little bit longer, so when he hits the wall, he turns around and follows them right back off the wall.”
Ray’s hard work led to world record times in his best stroke - the breast.
Even after entering the upper echelon of Para athletes in the U.S., Ray still had more obstacles.
“Being the first alternate in '21 [Tokyo Paralympics], then the first world championships the following year and getting Covid and being in my hotel room for days without a pool," said Ray.
While stuck in his room with Covid, Ray trained in the bathtub to maintain his breath control, and managed to take home a silver medal once he was cleared to race.
He had another positive Covid test at last year’s world championships, but 2024 turned out to finally be his year, as he became the first Paralympic swimmer from Jacksonville in at least the last 20 years.
Bolles held a send-off party for him with some of the school’s current athletes, who Ray hopes to be an inspiration to, along with all the other Para swimmers out there.
“Not to say our Olympic counterparts don’t work hard, but we have to find extra ways to because we’re in a world not built for us and we have to work with what we have," said Ray. "Just embracing that underdog, ‘You know, I can work with this. I have something to prove’ kind of thing.”
While the trip to Europe will center on his time in the pool, Ray does plan to enjoy Paris.
After all, he worked hard to get there.
“I do have to have a croissant," said Ray. "Paris, I mean, the Eiffel Tower and all that, that’s straight out of a fairytale book.”
His team at Bolles will be rooting for a fairytale ending, too.
Ray will compete in the 100-meter breast stroke, 200-meter individual medley and possibly a handful of relays.
Ray left the send-off here party to head to the Paralympics Training Center in Colorado Springs for the next few weeks to make sure he’s in the shape of his life when it’s time to head to Paris.