Relentless Spirit

by Missy Franklin

  Logistically, it was tough as well, because Nick ended up with our pool. That sounds a whole lot worse than it was, because neither club had its own facility. Stars rented space from one of the high schools, and when the club’s contract was up, since Nick was probably the one who’d negotiated it in the first place, he was able to get the contract for his new team. Of course, it helped that the pool was at the high school where he coached—the high school I’d eventually choose to attend.

  But I’ll get to that. . . .

  MOM: Do you want to know when Dick and I realized Todd was the right coach for Missy? She was eleven or twelve, and every year Todd would sit down with his swimmers individually and go over their goals. From a very early age, Missy had to present her goals. At seven, maybe it was to remember to bring her swim cap and her goggles to every practice. At eight, maybe it was to pack her swim bag herself, so Mom didn’t have to do it. Whatever it was, it was a big goal at the time, and Todd would then incorporate these things into what he was doing. So at twelve, Missy went to Todd and said she wanted to get her Olympic trial times. Just to put this in perspective, Missy had her sectional times by the time she was eleven, so she knew all about this stuff. She’d hear other kids talking about their junior national or national times, and she knew Olympic trial times were even faster, and this was what she wanted. And Todd was great about it. Instead of saying, “What? You must be kidding,” he went, “Great! How are you going to do it?” And Missy walked him through it. She’d already thought about it. She’d work more on her starts, because she was slow off the blocks. She’d work harder on her dry-land workouts. She had a whole list, and together the two of them came up with a plan to make Missy’s goals happen, the same way he helped her remember to bring her goggles to practice when she was little. Todd shared that conversation with me, but Missy didn’t. It was between her and her coach. And I just thought that was wonderful.

  Now, if you’ve followed my career, you’ll know that my relationship with Nick Frasersmith didn’t end when he left the Colorado Stars, because he became my high school coach after that, at Regis Jesuit. My decision to go to Regis was the other major decision my parents left to me to make, and even though it came about for mostly swimming reasons it very quickly became one of the most formative, foundational, faith-affirming decisions of my life. Really, it changed everything.

  All along, I was on track to go to Arapahoe High School, which was about five minutes from my house. Littleton, Colorado, has a great public school system, so there was no reason for me to look to go anywhere else. That is, there was no reason to go anywhere else until seventh or eighth grade, when I started to come into my own as a swimmer. Remember, by eighth grade I’d already gone to Olympic trials. Clearly, swimming meant a lot to me, and it made sense to find the best high school swimming program in the area, so I could grow as an athlete and compete at the highest level and still get the best possible education. The challenge was finding a school and a program that would accommodate my insane, uncertain travel schedule, now that I was going to all these national and international meets. The swimming program at Arapahoe was very strong. In some years, the school ran out some terrific teams. So I went to Arapahoe and took a tour of the school, met with the principal, spent some time with the swim coach and members of the team. I knew a lot of the girls already, of course, from local club meets, but I really wanted to give the school a long look.

  I also looked at one of Arapahoe’s rivals, Cherry Creek High School, which was another public school, with a much bigger student body. Their high school team had been state champions twenty-six times in the past thirty-five years—a real swimming powerhouse. But I felt lost in the halls of Cherry Creek. I wanted to be at a school where I could say hi to everybody when I walked down the hall, where I could get to know my teachers, where I could walk from one end of the campus to another without feeling like I was already on a college campus. It just wasn’t for me. Plus, if I decided to go there we would have had to move, so it really was a nonstarter.

  Then I visited Regis Jesuit, and the moment I walked into the front hall of the school I knew my search was over. I felt God for the first time in my life, and I felt him in that instant. And it’s not like religion had been a big part of my life, or that I was even looking for him—really, all I was seeking was a place with a pool and the promise of a good education. But there he was. I’ll tell you more about that in a later chapter, I promise.

  I was overcome, overwhelmed, overjoyed. And in that moment, I knew. This was where I was meant to go to school. This was where I belonged. I still went and took the tour, met with some teachers and administrators. As a member of the junior national team (and—hopefully!—the national team), my parents and I wanted to be sure my teachers would support me and be flexible with my attendance, assignments, and exams. Academics were very important to me—they still are! And I wasn’t asking to be excused from anything. In fact, I welcomed the work and the challenges of high school. It’s just that if I wanted to keep swimming at this high level, I needed to be in an environment where I could accomplish all my goals, on a slightly adjusted schedule and I was helped enormously in this by John Koslowsky, our athletic director, and Gretzhen Kessler, our principal.

  It helped that I already knew Nick Frasersmith and some of the girls on the team, but there were some issues my parents and I needed to consider. On the plus side, there was the fact that I felt 100 percent comfortable there, more like myself than I’d ever felt in the halls of my middle school, or at Arapahoe or Cherry Creek or any of the other schools I was considering. On the minus side, Regis was located about ten miles east of my home, which presented a problem. Also, I’d never thought about going to an all-girls high school, never thought about going to a Catholic high school, never thought about going to a private high school. We’d never been a deeply religious bunch around our house, so I wondered how I’d fit in. And I worried how we’d pay the private tuition.

  One by one, we addressed these concerns. It turned out my auntie C.J., who didn’t have any children of her own, had started an education fund for me when I was born. It was meant to help pay for college, but my aunt and my parents agreed that the money could be used to cover the Regis tuition, so that became less of an issue. The whole no-boys thing was a worry, because boys are fun and stupid and cute and interesting to have around, but the more I talked to the girls I already knew at Regis, the more I saw the benefits of going to an all-girls school. So that was never really an issue. (And anyway, Regis Jesuit was coinstitutional, not coeducational, so there was a boys’ school on the other side of campus. If I ever needed my fix of fun and stupid and cute and interesting I could get it each day after lunch.) And the religious aspect was never a negative—it was just new and unfamiliar, but it felt to me like such a blessing to be able to add that whole new dimension to my life, so that wasn’t an issue, either.

  DAD: She came out of that visit to Regis Jesuit and she felt so at home. They called everybody their “sister.” Everyone was so connected. Missy had this instant feeling of belonging, and it wasn’t about religion, not at first. And I must say, I have a real passion for the Jesuits, even though I was a lapsed Protestant. The dean of men at Saint Mary’s University, Father John Hennessey, was a Jesuit priest. And between him and the football coach, Bob Hayes, those two men really straightened me out when I was at school. And here Father Philip Steele, the then president of Regis, so warmly reminded me of all the virtues of Father Hennessey, all those years ago. Sure, it would have been easier for Missy to get on the bus here and go to Arapahoe. Sure, it would have been more affordable. But it came down to passion, and when your child lights up the way Missy lit up, you better pay attention. And now I look back and think it was the best decision Missy could have made, and D.A. and I were there in support of that decision. I’ll tell you a story. I was in a Starbucks one morning, across the street from one of the public high schools, having coffee with two businessmen. As we ta
lked, we noticed a group of teenage girls, and one of the men I was with made a comment about how they were dressed. He mentioned that he had a teenage daughter who went to Arapahoe, and that he and his wife were so frustrated that she spent so much time worrying about her makeup, her earrings, her blouses. Every morning, it was such a big production, just to get ready for school. The other fellow concurred. He said that he had a daughter, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to try on three different tops, two different skirts, try her hair two or three ways. Then it was my turn, but I couldn’t share their frustration. I could tell them only that things were different in our house. I said, “It’s not like that with Missy. There are no boys at Regis. She gets up in the morning, she swims, she puts on her uniform polo, her tan slacks, puts her hair in a ponytail, no makeup, no lipstick, no earrings, and goes to class. That’s it.” They looked at me like I was giving them a line, but out of that conversation I came away thinking Missy made the best possible decision she could have ever made.

  The only argument against Regis was the commute. This was kind of a big deal—possibly even a deal breaker. We’d used the pool at Regis for years for some of our Colorado Stars practices, so we knew exactly how long it could take, especially in bad Rocky Mountain weather or during the worst part of the Denver rush hour. It could take twenty-five minutes, or it could take an hour and twenty-five minutes.

  My parents both worked . . . Mom’s clinic was in the complete opposite direction, so even on a good day when the roads were clear, it would take about a half hour to drop me off, and then she’d have to double back and continue on another forty minutes or so. All told, it would be about an hour and a half each morning. That was a lot for me to ask of her—only, I never really had to ask. My parents let it be known that they would do whatever I needed. The driving back and forth fell mostly to my mom, because her schedule was a little more flexible. But she would have taken me six hours out of her way, if the school I felt I was meant to attend was even farther from home. She always said she loved that time in the car with me each day—and so did I! Because of how wall-to-wall my schedule was, even then, our time together in the car was sometimes the only time we had during the day to just be together.

  When we broke it down, we realized it wasn’t just the back-and-forth to school we now had to consider as a family. There were morning and afternoon high school practices, as well as club-team practices. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, we had morning workouts with the Stars, which in some months was at another pool entirely. That usually ran from five o’clock in the morning until seven. School started at eight, so if we were swimming nearby I would just get breakfast with some of my friends, and maybe catch up on some homework I didn’t get to finish the night before. And then there’d be afternoon and evening practices as well.

  Most days, Mom was ferrying me around town from four thirty in the morning until eight o’clock at night. And do you know what? She never once complained. Dad never once complained. And I never missed an opportunity to thank them for their selflessness, their sacrifice. But, if you’d have asked them, they would have said that it was no sacrifice at all, that it was a blessing to be able to do this for me.

  Dad ended up doing most of the weekend driving, and he even found a great silver lining in these carpooling trips, because he used to take our great big malamute with him on these drives and spend an hour or two with Ruger in the park—time he probably would have never found to spend with him otherwise.

  To have parents who would upend their lives to make it possible for me to go to the school of my dreams—it meant the world to me. It still does. And like I said, the car rides became a very special part of our days. Although, I’ve got to admit, I was pretty sleepy on some of those morning commutes. But then Mom or Dad would pick me up and I would tell them about my day, and they would tell me about their days, and we would just talk and talk, and laugh and laugh.

  And the time just flew.

  My State-Championship Moment

  2011 COLORADO STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS—FORT COLLINS, COLORADO

  I don’t wish to get ahead of the story here, but I believe it’s useful to place this next moment in context. I swam all four years in high school. Freshman year, I did the whole shebang—every practice, every dual meet, every team pizza party. But that was my only year at Regis that I was fully present during high school swim season. I knew that after my first year I’d be pulled in all kinds of directions, since I was hoping to make it back to Olympic trials, and from there (if all went well!) to go on to London.

  The thing is, in order to be considered a card-carrying member of the team and to be eligible to compete in the state championships, you needed to make it to a certain number of practices and compete in at least two dual meets throughout the season, so I made sure to meet that threshold during my sophomore year because we all felt we had a chance to go far as a team. The previous year, when I was all-in as a freshman, we’d finished second to Cherry Creek High School, which we were all pumped about. For little Regis Jesuit to compete against large schools like Cherry Creek . . . it was a big, big deal, and out of that showing we started to get excited for the following year, my sophomore season. There was a senior class that year in Colorado that was probably the best recruiting class ever, ever, ever to come out of the state: Bonnie Brandon, who swam for Cherry Creek and ended up at Arizona; Jordan Mattern, who also swam for Creek and who’d go on to swim for Georgia; Kelly Naze and Caroline Piehl, who swam for Creek and Smoky Hill and were off to California, Berkeley; and Alex Todd, who swam with me at Regis and was headed to Purdue.

  I had my sights set on worlds that year, in Shanghai, so I couldn’t devote myself exclusively to the Regis team the way I had as a freshman, but I was there as much as I could be. The way it worked out, the 2011 World Aquatics Championships in Shanghai was like my coming-out party on the international stage. Everything came together for me at that meet—I peaked at just the right time. More than any other single meet to that point in my career, this one put it out there that I was a swimmer to watch. It was my very first international long-course meet, so in a lot of ways it was my very first opportunity to show the swimming world what I could do on the world stage. And—happily, thrillingly—I did just that. I took home five medals in all—three gold, one silver, and one bronze. On a personal level, I was probably most proud of my 200-meter backstroke—my first individual world title, breaking my own national record and swimming the third-fastest time ever. But even then, there was something extra special about our win in the 4x100-meter medley, with a time of 3:52.36, a full three seconds ahead of second-place China and the second-fastest time in history. (Like, what?!)

  For a lot of swimmers, stepping off of that kind of world stage and competing for a high school team might have been a bit of a letdown, but I never saw it that way. In fact, I was looking forward to getting back in the pool with my Regis friends. In some ways, it’s like worlds that year were a kind of tune-up for our state championship back home. That sounds crazy, I know, but this was really how I thought at the time. I set it up in my head so that my high school season was the most important part of my swimming calendar. Whenever I could, I’d race back to swim with my team. Even if I couldn’t get to practice in time to swim with the group, I’d try to catch the last few minutes of a session. Nick Frasersmith understood completely and couldn’t have been more accommodating, and my friends on the team were super supportive. They knew I’d be with them full-time if it was at all possible. And they knew I’d be all-in and back at it in time for states.

  It turned out, I cut it pretty close. I think I had a day to rest before the state meet was under way, which wasn’t all that much time, considering how hard I’d been training. But my Regis teammates had been training hard, too. Seriously, these girls were putting in a tremendous effort, all season long, and it was an honor to get to swim with them at states and see if we could finish off our season with a flourish. They’d all worked so har
d to make it to this moment, and here it was. Oh my gosh, I was so proud of each and every one of them, just as I knew each and every one of them was proud of me. Does that sound sappy? It does, doesn’t it? But we all loved each other so much, and pulled for each other so much, I can’t put it any other way! And don’t forget how much I love my cheery sappiness!

  The way the meet played out, it was down to Regis and Creek. It was like a grudge match left over from the year before, and it had all the makings of a storybook ending to our season, especially for our senior swimmers. Honestly, if you worked up this same scenario in a script for some Disney movie, nobody would’ve believed it. We were back and forth on the scoreboard; first we were ahead, then Creek was ahead, and then we were back on top. We kept trading the lead with Creek. It was just insane. And the way it worked out was that every position, every swimmer, mattered. We needed points up and down our lineup, all meet long. Second place mattered . . . fifth place mattered . . . eighth place mattered . . . you get the idea. Our marching orders were simple: beat a Creek cap. That’s what we kept telling each other. Whatever you do, pick out a Creek cap in the pool and touch the wall ahead of the girl wearing that cap.

  If everybody did her job in this way, we’d come out on top.

  And do you know what? Our whole team stepped up, and it was such a rousing, thrilling experience, because every Regis swimmer who’d qualified for states was in a position to make a difference, to score points for our team. It didn’t matter that I’d been to Olympic trials or that I was training for worlds, or that someone like Alex Todd was swimming at her own high level. Every girl on the team was essential, and for a lot of them this would be the biggest athletic stage they’d ever be on, so to watch all these great friends of mine really thrive in this environment, under this kind of pressure—well, it was something to see. It was so inspiring! These girls worked hard every day, and to have it culminate in a shot at a state title was just magical, so every girl on the team really kicked things up a whole bunch of notches and did what she could to keep those Creek swimmers in our rearview mirror.