Beneath the Surface

by Phelps, Michael; Cazeneuve, Brian; Costas, Bob

  We went fishing a lot, too, but I only liked it when I was catching something. Otherwise, I’d get bored and start throwing rocks in the water, which, of course, would scare off the fish and defeat the whole purpose of going fishing in the first place.

  If dad could introduce me to fishing, I could coax him into playing video games. One of our favorites was Zelda, an old-school Nintendo game with a little guy who wore a green outfit and carried a little sword. The guy would start the game with two hearts of life and along the way accumulate feats of magic and more hearts. It was a cool game back in the day and it was cool to bond with my dad. I even told him one day that I wanted to be a state trooper, inspecting vehicles and keeping the roads safe as he did. “No, Michael, you’ll probably want to do something else,” he said.

  As time went on, we spent less time together. That happens as kids grow up and become more independent, I guess. Both of my parents were always behind decisions I made. If I wanted to hang out with my friends instead of going to Dad’s house on the weekends, he was fine with that. If I wanted to sleep in on the weekends and get ready for a meet, it was okay. There was a fine line for my dad between staying active in our lives on the one hand and giving us space to grow up on the other. As time went on, I stopped trying to involve him in my activities and he stopped trying to involve himself.

  It also got really awkward for Hilary, Whitney, or me to see him in the company of another woman. Was this a girlfriend? Was this woman becoming a special part of his life and was she, therefore, supposed to become a special part of our lives? I just didn’t want to see him with anyone except my mom. She didn’t seem interested in anyone else’s company, because she was always taking care of us and putting us first.

  I tested the limits of her unconditional support when I discovered rap music. Whitney’s boyfriend Victor had a Jeep CJ7 and I used to love getting in that car. He played hip-hop CDs and cranked up the sound system and I thought it was awesome. I’d listen to the beat, nod my head and feel like I could fit in with older kids. After I listened to A Tribe Called Quest, I started saving up money to buy the CDs. I turned on MTV to watch the rappers in their houses and their tricked-out cars with spinners on the rims and TVs in the seats. I just liked the whole culture of it. Rap lyrics can be pretty raw, but I explained to Mom that I tuned in for the beat and not the message. She listened to the songs and to my explanation with an open mind and she never objected, because it was part of growing up.

  So was my note-passing fling. I was in sixth grade at Dumbarton Middle School and had been passing notes in the hallway to an eighth-grade girl named Molly, who was one of Erin’s friends. Molly would say something funny; I’d respond. I’d ask about her friends; she would give me a funny note in return. We didn’t have any classes together, so we couldn’t pass notes during classtime. Of course we could just talk in the hallway, but this became a sort of game we played, to write things that would make the other person laugh through the next class. Eventually, I got up the courage to ask Molly to the movies in one of those notes. She agreed, and suddenly, the pressure was on. I didn’t tell too many people about this date, but Matt McDonough started telling me about the yawn, stretch your hand out and put your arm around her trick. It’s easy to think about, but doing it in a subtle way is practically impossible. That night we met up with a bunch of her friends and saw Jurassic Park II. I didn’t drive yet, so my mom was going to pick us up. I’m not exactly sure what inspired the moment—maybe T-Rex roaring or actors screaming, but at some point during the movie, we both went for it. My first kiss. It felt weird. It felt great. It felt, wow, what is it supposed to feel like? It was a new feeling, exciting, scary, everything. Honestly, I don’t know about her, but that’s all I thought about during the movie.

  I couldn’t help myself when we went back to school. People knew we were going out, so they asked and I told. It’s a rite of passage and I felt different after it happened. In a few months, the summer came. I bought my first rose to give to Molly for her graduation and she got ready to go to ninth grade at a different school, while I was heading for seventh. Nothing ruins a lifelong relationship more than seventh grade, so we split. High school seemed so far away at that point. I still had a lot of growing up to do and some important decisions to make.

  Remember the primary teacher who said I’d never amount to anything because I couldn’t focus? Well, my mom didn’t tell me about those comments then, but she did tell me about a discussion she had with Ms. Myers, my seventh-grade English teacher. She said that I was having an extreme amount of difficulty with writing, that I couldn’t, or didn’t, take the effort to express my thoughts on paper as readily as I would when I spoke. I had to hand in journal entries for her class, and on many days I didn’t feel I had much to say, so I didn’t hand anything in. When I did write something, I didn’t take time to think things through or to proofread what I wrote. My mom tried to explain to me that writing was not a one-shot deal, that it took as much patience and detail to tell a story or write a journal entry just as it would to write someone a letter, something else I didn’t like to do unless I was slipping notes to girls in hallways. “Michael, not only does Ms. Myers think you aren’t doing a good job on your journals, but she thinks you simply can’t do a better job on them. Now, what are we going to do about that?”

  What we did was work and work some more. For hours after swim practice, we’d sit in front of the computer together and Mom would help me complete my journal.

  “Michael, what’s the topic today?”

  “Summer vacation.”

  “And what was the first thing you thought of when they told you the topic?”

  “The beach.”

  “So write about what happened at the beach.”

  “Nothing happened at the beach.”

  “Really, so you slept at the beach the whole time?”

  “No, we did things.”

  “So, write about three things you did.”

  “I can think of two, maybe.”

  “Good, two… and then one more.”

  “But Mohhhm …”

  My mom would rarely say no to anything I did, even if she thought it wasn’t a good idea. Instead she’d say, “Oh, I see” and start nodding. That meant that she wanted me to rethink the idea on my own so she didn’t have to give me a lecture. I can read the nods (that mean no) pretty well by now. They’re usually followed by a list of every consequence under the sun to make me reach the conclusion that the plan just won’t fly.

  “All right, Michael, but if you do that, you realize that this will happen and that will happen and you have to do this and give up that and I won’t be there to help with this and …”

  “Okay Mom, I’ll do something else.”

  “Michael, I’m glad you feel that way. I think you made a smart decision. Michael, I really support the decision you just made.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Each time, my mind processed the consequences, there would be this chain collision of objections to something that told me no.

  I can only think of one time when I really tried to override her. It was seventh grade and I was fed up with having to take Ritalin. I looked at it as a crutch, and I didn’t need to be slinking off to the nurse anymore. This wasn’t coming from anyone else. This was me. I wanted to be rid of it.

  “Michael, you know how you lose concentration.”

  “I’ll concentrate harder.”

  “You know how you don’t like to read a whole chapter in one sitting…”

  “Mom, I’ll concentrate harder.”

  “You know how you start talking to other kids in the middle of lectures…”

  “Mom, I know I have to work harder.”

  “If I start hearing from your teachers …”

  “Mom, I really want to do this. I need to do this. It’s time.”

  On my mom’s face, I saw a combination of concern and pride. Inside, I knew how much she wanted me to take this step, too. We spoke to Dr. Wax about
it and he gradually started weaning me off the medication, first eliminating the afternoon dose so I wouldn’t have to take it during school, then the frequency of the other doses, and by the next year, all of it. The crutch was gone, and I had learned what it was like to set a goal that was difficult to achieve—and to win.

  7

  BREAKING OUT

  Just because I was growing up, it didn’t mean I was growing out of old habits. It was January, 1998 and Bob wanted me to warm down at the end of a long practice by swimming an easy 400 yards. After giving his instructions, he ran upstairs to make some copies from a glass-enclosed room that overlooked the pool. From there, he could see that I only swam 150 yards before getting out of the water, so he came downstairs to confront me. At some point as he was walking down the staircase, he mumbled something a little off-color under his breath, but without realizing it, he said it as he passed Whitney, who was walking in the other direction. She told my mom about it later that night and Mom sent Bob a one-page letter that asked, among other things, why he was being so tough on me, given my age. The upshot of the letter was that Bob apologized for one word, but he stood by his disappointment over the fact that I left early. I realized that Bob looked after the little things and he was going to make sure I did, too.

  I never liked practices the day before a meet. Get me to the blocks and tell me when to go. I thought I could cruise through one of those training sessions one afternoon as we were preparing for the annual meet that NBAC hosted in June. We had an easy practice scheduled: 16 sets of 50s starting once a minute, with each set going a little faster. We lined up to do our sets in a row, so if the swimmer in front of you slowed down, it meant that you had to slow down, too. I was really swimming in quicksand. “Michael, speed up,” the girl behind me was saying. “You’ll have to go faster.” I didn’t and finally Bob had had enough. “That’s it, Michael, get out of the pool. You’re not going to swim another stroke for NBAC until you do the set properly. Not another stroke.” Of course I had to explain to my mom why I was done early that afternoon. I was convinced that Bob wasn’t serious, that he’d let it blow over because it was just a throwaway training set and we had races to swim. Wrong again. Bob got on the phone with Mom and called for a 5:30 a.m. meeting with my parents and me the next day. It was as much fun as going to the dentist.

  Bob held court in his usual plastic seat. Mom brought her usual arsenal of logic and called for calm compromise. Dad sat in full uniform and listened. I pouted and kept my face under my cap. “Michael is not on the team until he does the set I told him to do yesterday,” Bob said. “Michael, I don’t care if you like it, and I really don’t care if you like me, but if you want to be on this team, you have to get in the pool and finish what you were supposed to do yesterday.”

  Honestly, Bob never expected he’d coach me for very long. He figured one of us would give up on the other sooner or later. He knew I was talented, but he figured either I would convince my mom to take me to some other coach or he would go somewhere else. He had nothing to lose. He didn’t lose, either. I went downstairs, stretched and completed the drill properly from start to finish.

  It was a rare joy when we got away with doing anything behind Bob’s back (Bong), but you take your victories where you can get them (Bong). Since it seemed we could never say anything without Bob catching on (Bong), the kids at the pool came up with our own language. We called it Bong. It was our version of Pig Latin, and Erin and I could speak it fluently a mile a minute. If a tense moment called for a conversation we couldn’t have in present company, one of us would cover our mouth as if to cough. Out would come the word “bong” and everything else that followed was a flurry of syllables that flew straight over Bob’s head. Essentially, we added the letters ONG to consonants, spoke all vowels and got away with verbal murder. Bob never wanted us to complain about the heat, but whenever it was really steaming during one of our workouts, in or out of the pool, the phrase I-tong-song Hong-oh-tong would get tossed around like a beachball. Verbal warfare is fun when you bring camouflage.

  Other times, well, it can lead to trouble. I was playing volleyball at school in seventh grade when some kids began talking smack on the other side of the net. Then one of the kids came over and started flicking my ears. I told him to knock it off, but he wouldn’t. Finally I slugged him, got suspended from school and had to sit through long talks with my parents. My mom talked to me about conflict resolution, since she never wanted to me to hit anybody and always figured there were better ways to handle arguments. My dad talked to me about punching technique, since he wanted to make sure I got in a good shot. “Michael, if you’re going to hit the kid,” he said, “make it a good one.”

  Some days, my temper would get the better of me. I was sitting in eighth-grade math class when my teacher, Mr. De Stefano, told me to stop leaning back in my chair. It was a way for him to prove a point. I had a habit of rocking back in my seat, so I was only resting on two chair legs and I was making an outline into the floor. “But I’m not doing anything,” I yelled at him. Then I left the room. I was furious and I was convinced that he singled me out and overreacted. But after that I never leaned back in my chair again.

  On the other hand, I loved eighth-grade home economics class. I’ve never taken such detailed notes or given such undivided attention to a teacher. Of course a lot of that had to do with the teacher. Ms. Schwan was right out of college and gorgeous. The girls in the room sometimes gave her trouble, but I don’t think one guy ever misbehaved in that class for a minute. If she had asked us to collect a million milk coupons, jump into a barrel of onions and calculate tax in Swahili, we would have done it. We all had killer crushes on her. I got an A.

  I had another breakthrough of sorts that year: I shaved. Boys love it when they are able to shave. It means they have to shave, which is a sign of manliness to compensate for that crackling voice. It’s different, though, for swimmers. When we train for big meets, we go through a cycle we call “shave and taper.” As the competition approaches, we gradually reduce our training load so that our bodies will be able to draw from the training base while still being rested enough so we aren’t too tired and sore. That’s the taper. Swimmers also shave their bodies before big competitions on the theory that body hair creates resistance as the body moves through the water. That’s why, if you watch the Olympics or other major swim meets, most of the swimmers will be wearing swim caps. Some will even be bald. When swimmers compete without being shaved and tapered, chances are they are competing while still in the middle of a training cycle and won’t be able to swim at their peak.

  A swimmer’s shave extends well beyond sideburns. You need to shave everywhere that isn’t covered by your suit. And nobody is more capable of self-inflicted injury than a rookie shaver. How hard do you press down? Where do you press down? How do you reach this spot? And that spot? How much do you (ouch!). … By the end of that first shaving session, I had nice road maps running up and down my legs with crowded intersections forming at my knees.

  Meanwhile, I was starting to take part in bigger competitions. My breakout meet was the ’99 juniors in Orlando, where I made my first national cut at age 13. I didn’t win any events, but I finished in the top four three times. I swam the 200 fly in 2:04, which was an astounding ten-second improvement from what I had done in training just six weeks earlier. I was a little disappointed to swim so well and not win any titles, but Bob congratulated me after the race and said that he thought first place might have been bad luck. He said he had never coached a swimmer who won juniors and then went on to win Nationals as a senior.

  I was in for some heavy reading after that meet. Every six months, Swimming World magazine would list the top 16 times in each race throughout the country. I would read through the entire list the first day I got it and then read through it again the next day. The magazine also listed the top age-group swimmers in the country. I got a real charge out of looking in the magazine and seeing my name in its pages. So what if you had t
o skim through what seemed like ten thousand pages to get to it on one of the last pages. And maybe it was listed in microscopic print, visible only by a high-powered lens. There it was: M. Phelps.

  I felt I was really hitting the big time. I gave my first interview to our local paper, the Baltimore Sun. What did a 13-year-old have to say for himself? I really don’t remember. I was shocked, rather than nervous. Cal Ripken Jr. belonged on the sports pages, not me.

  I went to Senior Nationals later that summer in Minneapolis and finished 41st in the 400 IM in my first race. In my next race, I swam a 2:07 in the 200 fly and was dead last in my heat. The time was more than two seconds slower than I had just swum at juniors. It was a good lesson for Bob that perhaps I just wasn’t ready yet. Logically, I should have been able swim as fast there as I had in Orlando, but this was a different atmosphere altogether. I remember being on the deck, getting ready for my heat and thinking: Wow, there’s Tom Dolan. Later I was sitting in the stands, watching Tom Malchow walk across the pooldeck. I wasn’t really trying to see what his practice habits were, but I was just watching him because I was in awe of him and, more important, in awe of the fact that I was swimming at the same meet as the defending Olympic silver medalist. I got to see the elite swimmers up close, but I was focusing on what they were doing rather than what I was doing.