“Hello, how’s it going, everyone?” a voice said. Okay, I was conscious again. It was Bob. He had been standing on the side, letting us savor the occasion, but now there was work to do. “Michael, you have a press conference, a drug test, and a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
Even at a time like this, Bob always thought about tomorrow and the next challenge. He never let me look back during the entire Olympics.
So I’ll do it now.
2
CLOSE CALLS
My mom knew she’d have her hands full from the moment I was born on June 30, 1985. At nine pounds and six ounces, I was probably destined to run her into the ground. I can’t say I was accident prone as a child, because a lot of things happened without my control. Other things happened because I was restless and had to get into everything. Whatever it was, if it was breakable, I usually found it, so let’s just say I was incident prone.
I was two years old on Christmas Eve in 1987. I started developing a fever that kept getting worse. My parents called my pediatrician who told them to get me to an emergency room right away. My dad, Fred, was a Maryland State trooper, so he put me into his police car and started flying toward Franklin Square Hospital, 45 minutes away from our house in Whiteford, Maryland. He flashed his lights and blared his siren and got me there just in time for them to diagnose a pretty serious viral infection that was lowering my white blood cell count, sapping my strength and driving up my temperature to 104. The doctor told my parents afterward that if the infection hadn’t been treated within a few hours, I probably wouldn’t have pulled through. The stopwatch was important in my life even then.
I used to love to jump around in the garden in our backyard. We grew tomatoes, potatoes, corn, beans, onions, radishes, melons, you name it. We had a dog named Thadeus, a white German Shepherd who usually had a pretty friendly personality when the girls would walk into his pen to feed him. Thadeus’ previous owner used to give him these baby dolls to play with. He would shake them around, chew them up, toss them as far as he could across the pen and then race after them and start chewing again. Of course, Hilary and Whitney were ten and eight at the time and Thadeus was used to the company of kids who were bigger and older than me. I was only three, so one morning when I went into the pen to feed Thadeus, he thought I was one of the dolls. He bit me in the back of the neck and started chewing. Then he tossed me from one end of the pen to the other. He was much bigger than I was, and I couldn’t do anything to get free. Hilary started screaming and trying to pull him off, but he was having too much fun. To Thadeus, I was a play toy, and he was as full of restless energy as I often was. It took a few minutes, but finally my dad came and pulled the dog off me. Thadeus broke my skin in several places, but thankfully, he didn’t decide to take a piece out of my neck.
A few months earlier, two raccoons had died near our house, one from rabies and the other from distemper. My dad had Thadeus put down and he told me we would have to get another dog because, with all the diseases going around, we couldn’t take a chance that he’d bite one of us again. If I try to remember my early, early childhood, the day Thadeus mistook me for a rag doll was my first memory of anything.
Of course my parents had warned me to be careful of Thadeus, but parental warnings didn’t usually stop me from experimenting with danger or discomfort. The first story about Michael Phelps and water had nothing to do with a swimming pool. Mom and Dad took us to dinner one night when I was seven at a Mexican place called Chi Chi’s and they tried to explain that I should be careful of the hot sauce in the bowl on the side. What happens when you tell a kid to be careful? You awaken his inner daredevil. The red sauce looked a lot like ketchup, and that wasn’t too hot, was it? So I took a nacho, slathered on a huge spoonful of five-alarm chili sauce and took a bite. Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Within seconds I was waving my arms like a windmill and my eyes were like faucets. Water, water, I need water. “Michael, we told you to be careful.” More water, Mom’s water. Dad’s too. “If we tell you it’s too hot …” Where’s Hilary’s water? “… then you have to be careful.” Waiter, more water, please. I was drinking it so fast that about half of it ran down my cheeks. I was like a beached fish trying to find his way to moisture. I guess my parents figured if I didn’t listen to their warnings, I might as well learn for myself.
I was a handful at the dinner table, because I always had to do something with my hands. In my middle fingers I liked to twirl pens and pencils, but if they weren’t available at dinner, I might try to substitute a salt shaker or a steak knife. I should have known I couldn’t twirl glasses of milk. Until food arrived, it was up to my mom to keep me away from anything that could break, spill, cause bodily harm or overseason the lasagna. Once I was finished eating my food, I used to play with it. Take some ketchup, some mayonnaise, some sugar, a few potatoes, some spinach and just mix them all together as if you’re making a casserole. It drove my mom crazy. Sometimes I’d realize I was still hungry, so I’d try a bite of the casserole and it was usually okay—especially if you poured milk on it. And ice cream was always better in some melted, mashed, or otherwise altered state.
I simply could never sit still. I made faces at cameras, answered questions with questions and climbed on things that weren’t meant for climbing. Most people had patience with me, but one particular primary teacher took her case to my mom. “Michael just can’t focus on anything,” she told my mom. “Well,” she answered, “maybe he’s bored with what he’s being taught.” That didn’t go over well. “Mrs. Phelps, you’re not insinuating that Michael is especially gifted, are you? I just don’t ever see him being able to focus on anything in his life.”
I was a hyperactive kid who loved being with his friends and his family, but still caused trouble for everyone. The year I turned seven, two things happened that would change my life.
I walked into my parents’ room at our old house on Chesapeake Avenue one day. My mom had a very sad look on her face and my sisters were crying. You know how you walk into a room and realize you’ve interrupted a heavy conversation and you don’t know how to make a graceful exit? I felt like that. I didn’t know what I’d walked into, but I knew it wasn’t good. Sometimes I’ve walked in on situations where my sisters or my mom were upset or people were having an argument, just as they do in any family, but I remember that this was something I’d never seen before, because everyone was sad. I figured it was just something I, as the little kid, wasn’t supposed to understand, so I began to leave.
“Michael,” my mom said, “I need to tell you something.” I don’t know if I had ever heard the words “separation” or “divorce” before. Parents are always together. There is a mom and there is a dad and they will always be there to look after kids like me, to teach us, guide us, pat us on the back, have all the answers because parents just know these things, and they basically tell us what’s what. I heard my mom explain to me that my dad really wasn’t going to be living with us anymore, but it didn’t make sense. Dad must have gone out to get something.
I began to grasp the whole thing one day when I went to play a video game. I used to bounce into our den and wait anxiously for my dad to get off the computer so I could play a game. Suddenly I didn’t have to wait anymore. Maybe my dad really wasn’t coming back. Maybe he wasn’t going to be in my life the way he had been. Maybe this was more of a change than I realized.
I’d ask my mom why and my sisters why, but they didn’t offer an answer. Perhaps nobody really had one, because Mom and Dad had been together so long. Both of my parents had grown up in small industrial Maryland towns, where people played sports and relied on families for support and incomes from the local paper mill. Dad came from Luke, which only had a population of around 100. Mom grew up a mile away in Westernport (pop. 2,000). They were school sweethearts at Bruce High and later at Fairmont State. She was a cheerleader and he was an outstanding football player who set the school record for interceptions as a defensive back, and was eventually the last man cut from the Washington R
edskins training camp. They both earned education degrees. Mom became a home economics teacher; Dad was a state police officer. Neither of my parents were swimmers.
Mom was always the one with irrefutable logic and unconditional love. She taught school kids about health and nutrition, and twice she was voted Maryland State Teacher of the Year. It’s a pretty strong negative statement about the higher education system that Mom got a “C” in a parenting class at Fairmont State. Upon further review, professors, I’d like to upgrade that to an A-plus.
Dad had his share of scraps in his early life, went hunting and fishing in his spare time and once had a job as a bouncer in Atlantic City. He would sometimes describe arguments he might have with someone by saying, “Let’s just say he and I had a discussion.” He became a sergeant and would spend almost three decades on the force before working as an independent security officer.
As I began to grasp that my dad would be away for a long time, I needed something that could grab my attention. My mom had started Hilary and Whitney in swimming because a family physician, Dr. Charles Wax, had convinced her that she should introduce her kids to water safety. The girls swam in the pool at Loyola High School, the original home of the North Baltimore Aquatic Club (NBAC) before it moved to its present home at the Meadowbrook complex. I knew they worked hard, because I remember alarm clocks going off at 4 a.m. so that my dad could drive Hilary to practice. I also remember seeing my sister have a blast during the club’s annual July 4th celebration. They used to sit in these blow-up boats and paddle forward in the water with their arms. I was starting to play other sports, but I wanted to get in the water, too. It was time for my first swim lesson.
You would think that on the first day I hit the water I just sort of turned into a dolphin and never wanted to leave the pool. No way. I hated it. We’re talking screaming, kicking, fit-throwing, goggle-tossing hate. It wasn’t anything like I expected. The NBAC was offering stroke clinics and I had my first lesson from Cathy Lears, a neighbor and close friend of my mom. I drove her crazy. I may have been the younger brother of two great swimmers, but as soon as I got in the pool, with Miss Cathy guiding me along, I realized I was scared to get my face wet. We tried it a few times without Miss Cathy holding on to me, but I just didn’t feel comfortable. In the shallow end, I was okay, because I realized that if I had to, I could simply stand up on the bottom and not worry about sinking. But when I knew I couldn’t stand, I started getting tense, becoming more rigid, less buoyant, unable to swim. Miss Cathy sensed my nervousness, but she also wanted to make sure I kept going and she didn’t let me make excuses: “I’m cold. I have to go to the bathroom. Maybe if I just sit on the side and watch the other kids do it….”
No luck. “That’s your problem, Michael Phelps. Your mom wants you to learn how to swim, so you’re going to swim.”
“But I don’t want to get my face wet.” I raised a screaming stink about it.
Miss Cathy was one of many people who were determined to get the best out of me no matter how difficult I made it for her. She finally offered me a compromise. “Well, you can start on your back and learn to swim that way,” she said, “but you’re going to learn one way or another.” At least on my back I couldn’t see how deep the water was, and so I couldn’t see myself sink. I started to figure out how to float. Then after a few sessions I realized how to flail my arms and legs without sinking. I don’t remember how long it took for this flailing to turn into swimming or how many lessons it took me to turn over on my stomach and work on the Australian crawl, but once I figured out how to swim, I felt so free. It was like I had this new toy that my sisters enjoyed all this time. I went to the pool every day and it usually took a while to get me to leave. I had grown up around the pool so much. The more I swam, the more it became a part of me and the more I wanted to get back.
Not so fast. Later that year, I was at a friend’s house, wrestling around on the lawn with Russell Fitzell, a buddy from the swim team. I don’t remember getting hit especially hard or taking an especially bad fall during the day, but when I went back into the Fitzells’ living room and sat down, I started to complain without saying what was bothering me. It was a time when I was still upset and confused about my parents’ separation, so I complained pretty often about nearly anything. Russell’s mother, Loretta, put me in a recliner and gave me some juice, hoping that would quiet me down. I started watching cartoons and almost fell asleep. Then one time when I started wiggling around in the chair, I let out an odd sound, sort of like a puppy’s yelp. Miss Loretta called my mom and they decided she should take me to the doctor. Good thing, too. I had broken my collarbone.
I wore a thick brace on my back for the summer. It was so hot and I wanted to get in the water and play around the pool with my friends, but instead I just sat there, because I had no choice. By the time I got the brace off in the fall, I was fired up to swim again.
3
INTO THE WATER
I don’t remember my first race. People find that hard to believe, but before we had age-group races, club races, zone meets, national meets, international events and, of course, the Olympics, there was probably some small, informal race that kick started my career, but I don’t remember it as much as I remember loving the water.
I remember swimming in an open-water mile contest in the Chesapeake Bay and it was a blast. We started out of the water, ran into it and tried not to collide with all the other swimmers as we elbowed for position. Everyone tried to cut each other off as we got closer to the finish, but it finally came down to me and Brad Schertle, the son of one of the NBAC coaches. I won a very close race at the end, mainly because Brad, um, tripped and fell on his own, sort of. I told my mom afterward that when I grew up, my future job would probably involve swimming.
I guess I started on my professional aspirations when I was still in elementary school. Greg Eggert is a swim official who used to own a swimwear business called Metro Sports. When I went to Eastern Zone meets to watch Whitney or Hilary in places like Princeton, New Jersey, and Gloucester, Pennsylvania, Greg usually brought along samples from his business and set up a travelling store at the meets. Greg sold suits, caps, goggles, towels, and, most of all, posters. If I disappeared into his store long enough, I figured I could at least try to get my mom to buy me a poster. At some point I sort of appointed myself as Greg’s sales assistant. I would show people to the right aisles, take the swimsuits on and off hangers for them and help them find the right size or color. “This is my associate, Mr. Phelps,” Greg would tell his customers. My mom liked the fact that he looked after me and kept me occupied. I think I also helped him sell a few suits to people who would have flipped through and walked out, if not for the pushy sales assistant.
People in swimming like Greg made me feel I could fit in. That was important, because even though I had a lot of friends at school, some things could make me pretty sensitive. Because I didn’t like listening to people and looking them in the eye when they spoke to me, I often had to ask people to repeat themselves. When I talked fast, I’d drop my Ls and add Ss to words, and if I tried to tell people I didn’t have a lisp, I’d usually lisp the word lisp. And I would have given anything not to have such big ears. I used to wear a hat all the time because I thought it made them look smaller. Other kids knew they could get under my skin by flicking my ears, exposing my ears, or even talking about my ears. When our school bus stopped in front of my house, the older kids would take off my hat, fling it onto the driveway and make some reference to Spock, the Vulcan character in Star Trek.
I’m not sure if it was because of my big ears or short attention span, but I always appreciated people who were patient and supportive and I always identified with underdogs. My third-grade teacher, Barbara Kines, was one of the people who really encouraged me, telling me I had an “active personality” that was healthy for young boys. Instead of always telling me what to do, she often asked me what I liked to do. Eventually, I invited her and her husband, Rodge, to some of my meets.
Rodge was legally blind and I knew that whenever I walked up to speak to him, I needed to say, “Hi, Mr. Rodge, it’s Michael.” I even told the other kids to make sure they did the same thing, so he wouldn’t be embarrassed to ask who was in front of him. Rodge would talk with the kids about how he had to rely on his other senses because he wasn’t able to see. I guess because Rodge was so honest with us and so open about what he had and didn’t have, we really admired him.
One day, I won a freestyle race at Towson State and walked up to share my excitement with him. I tapped his arm, but before I could say anything, he told me, “Michael, that was great.” I was surprised. I asked how he knew it was me and how he knew the result of the race. “Didn’t you hear them cheering after they said your name? Michael, the cheering was for you. You were great.”
I was just starting to build a collection of small ribbons from good results at swim events, when I began working at NBAC with Tom Himes, the first coach who really enhanced my feelings about swimming. Hilary and I were both working with him at the time, when she was 16 and I was nine. He was the perfect age-group coach who taught the basics well and encouraged kids to have fun. Tom would show up at the pool in a Santa Claus outfit around Christmastime. When Hilary’s group won a zone meet it wasn’t expected to win, Tom made good on a promise that she could shave off his moustache. Every Friday after practice, Tom would take Whitney and me to TCBY for yogurt. He always looked after me and would tell a joke or do something funny when I would go from being hyper to being moody.
Beneath the Surface Page 4