I wasn’t due to compete on the last day of the event, but that didn’t mean Bob didn’t want me to swim. “Get ready, Michael, you’re doing a practice today.” I thought, wait a second, he isn’t going to make me practice today. We’re already at the pool and I didn’t even bring my suit. Hey, it worked in lacrosse: no cup, no goalie; why wouldn’t it work at the pool? Because Bob was my coach now.
“I thought I was resting today.”
“You’re training.”
“But I don’t have a suit. What can I do?”
“You can get in the car with me.”
“You’re kidding.”
He wasn’t kidding. It took us 40 minutes to go back and get the suit. I had a pouty face and a serious attitude all day, but it didn’t change the fact the we got the suit and I went back in the water.
Bob tried to nudge me in the right direction by instituting double sessions in training, but it didn’t last a week. “I’m spending 80 percent of my time at the pool,” I told him. Bob rebuffed that with a notebook and pen and some simple math. So it was only 20 percent; it sure felt like 80 percent. I mean nothing ruins a good argument like a bunch of facts.
That year, Dynamo called to offer Bob another interview for a job at their club. After 18 months of coaching my group, a position he assumed would be temporary, Bob finally saw his dream job staring at him in the face, so he went up to talk to Murray about it. “Bob, I don’t want to do anything to keep you from moving on,” Murray said. “I know how much you want this job. Maybe you should take it.” Bob was reassured he was doing the right thing and he figured he would leave … for about three seconds. “Of course if you stay, I see you being Michael’s coach for the duration. It wouldn’t be right to give him to anyone else. Let me know what you think.” Bob called the Dynamo club back the next day to tell them no. We were in this together for the long haul.
8
NOW FOR THE LONG HAUL
Not only was Bob my coach for life, but he was on to me. When I arrived at a morning practice, he told me one day that after practice was over, he was going to give me a note with some of what he thought were realistic goal times for the next few meets. The times weren’t listed in numerals; they were written in Bong—are no secrets safe? I still have the paper. It was his way of letting us know he was aware of the language and that he was relating to us. It was also Big Brother springing into action. Apparently, Bob had known about Bong for a while, but he hadn’t told people. Fortunately, even though Bob realized what we were doing, he didn’t necessarily understand what we were saying. We made sure we spoke too quickly for him to keep up, but there was still an inherent danger in gabbing in Bong, because the cong-aye-tong was out of the bong-aye-gong.
I headed off to Towson High School in the fall of 1999 and re-discovered my urge to play other sports. I hit it off with a government teacher there named Gerry Brewster, a former state delegate (Anyone remember ‘I’m a Brewster Booster?’). On our first day of class, we listed our interests on a piece of paper and I wrote down swimming.
“Are you any good, Michael?”
“Pretty good.”
“Have you won any races?”
“A few.”
It turned out Mr. Brewster was also the high school golf coach. He told me about the team and it sounded like fun, even though I told him at first that I couldn’t try out because of swimming.
A few weeks later, some friends of mine won spots on the Towson High football team. Away from Towson, Matt, who went to a different school, Calvert Hall, for freshman and sophomore years, also made his team as a lineman. I really wanted to join them and I started calculating the hours for homework, swim training, and football practice in my head. The numbers almost made sense if you turned them sideways and removed those futile eight hours for sleep. I couldn’t do without meal and snacktime.
“Hey, Mom, I was thinking of trying to join the football team.”
(Silence from Mom. Oh, that’s not good.)
“Mom?”
“Michael, let’s talk about this.”
(Silence from me. This could be painful.)
“Michael, I know you’re proud of your friend and you should be, but how many hours of practice do you think the football team has? And how many games?”
“Well, they practice in the afternoons … and then they play games …”
“… about the same time you have your swim meets?”
“Not all the time.”
“Where can his football career take him? First string? County championships? All-Metro? A Division I school? Will he be pro?”
“He’s kinda small for the pros.”
“Now what can you do with swimming?”
“Mom, how about golf?”
(Long self-explanatory silence.)
“Maybe I can go to one or two of Matt’s games.”
“Good idea.”
I always respected my mom’s opinion, so it was ironic that a couple of adults thought I was being disrespectful toward her because I called her Debs at meets. In fact, that was a Mom-approved means of address. See, pooldecks are chaotic places with swimmers, officials, coaches, and family. Kids shout out “Mom” or “Dad” into a mass of people and 40 heads turn around to see if that scream is for them. So whenever I couldn’t find my mom or just wanted to get her attention, I’d yell for Debs instead.
Training went well that fall and winter. Bob had reached into his bag of tricks to improve every one of my strokes. I did butterfly and backstroke laps, using only the right or left arm, in order to isolate the arm and work on the way it moved through the water. We improved my freestyle technique by doing a drill that kept my elbows high and had me pull through with my fingertips, so my legs would do more of the work and get stronger. He often had me swim with arms only, legs only, or with one arm or one leg.
One day, Bob had me train in sneakers. Other days, I’d either swim while tethered to a pulley, while wearing a scuba vest or with an innertube around my ankles. Those impediments allowed me to increase resistance the way a hitter in the on-deck circle would take some practice swings with a donut on his bat. The extra weight would make the bat feel lighter and easier to swing once he actually faced live pitching. The weights on the swimmers would make swimming feel easier once the weights were gone.
The variety kept it interesting and challenging. Bob gradually worked me back into double sessions until I was ready to handle them on a regular basis. He didn’t want to tell me just how much my times were improving in practice, but in February of 2000, a week before we left for the Spring Nationals in Federal Way, Washington, Bob pulled my mom aside outside of Meadowbrook to speak to her.
“Debbie, when we get back from Seattle, we should sit down and talk.”
“Why, Bob? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong at all. In fact, it’s good, but it’s a matter of time before things start to change for Michael and nothing is going to be the same.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s way ahead of schedule right now and at some point—I don’t know when—we’re going to need to get ready for media attention, hype, expectation. He’ll need to prepare for that, and it will be on us sooner than we think.”
Somewhere in the back of Bob’s mind was the remote possibility that I could finish in the top two at trials in Indianapolis five months later and qualify for the Olympics at 15. It seemed less remote to him after my prelim swim in the 200 fly in Federal Way. I usually feed off a noisy crowd, but it was 1 p.m. on the first day of the meet. Almost nobody was in the stands and so there was no atmosphere. I broke two minutes for the first time, finishing in 1:59.4, an age-group record for 13- and 14-year-olds that was also faster than the 15s and 16s. I didn’t have perspective on that swim, but Bob and Murray were hiding their excitement. “Okay, that was good, Michael. Swim down and we’ll go get lunch,” Bob told me.
During that trip, I ate every single meal at a place called Mitzell’s, which was located next to our hot
el. And at every meal—we’re talking 21 meals over seven days—I ate clam chowder as my appetizer and a slice of cheesecake for dessert. Only the entrée changed. That’s how people on the team began to know me as Mr. Clam Chowder. Why change it if it works? As he was getting ready to take me to Mitzell’s, Bob was walking out to the parking lot to pick up the car, which was a long way from the front door. During the walk, he told himself under his breath, “Okay, he’s going to make the Olympic team. This Olympic team. The 2000 Olympic team. I better get him ready.” Even though Bob had the Olympic inkling, he didn’t act very different at lunch. But after he dropped me off at the hotel, he went out for a long jog to run off some of his energy. I came back at night and lowered my time to 1:59.0, finishing third behind Stephen Parry of Great Britain and Malchow.
The day after, I set another age group record in the 400 IM and dropped my time in that race by seven seconds to 4:24. Bob told me how well I was swimming, which gave me a false sense of relaxation. I wasn’t swimming in any finals the next day and Bob had talked about doing some sightseeing in the afternoon, so I figured I had earned a rare day off from training. What was I thinking? Of course, we trained anyway.
In the afternoon, Bob and I went to the Seattle fish market where customers have to catch their own fish. Confused? It’s a tradition that after people place their orders while standing on street level, a man wraps their fish while on a raised platform and throws it down to them. You don’t want a turnover there. Imagine going back to school or to work after missing the fish and having it hit you in the chest? I don’t get some traditions. Later we went up in the Space Needle that overlooks the city. It was an amazing view, but I couldn’t help bringing up swimming once or twice. Each time, Bob sort of deflected the conversation, telling me that I was doing well and then talking about other things. He didn’t want me getting carried away about the future.
On the final day I swam my one 1,500 free of the year and recorded the second-fastest time ever for my age group. On the outside, Bob was being very positive; on the inside, his mind was in overdrive, planning an accelerated schedule. I wondered why he couldn’t sleep on the flight home.
We came back from Seattle on a Monday and Bob brought me back to my house, when my mom was off at work. On the front lawn, she had placed a large banner with the word “congratulations” on it and trimmings around the lawn in red, white and blue. I thought it looked great. Bob grabbed all of it and took it down. My mom was pretty upset with Bob when she came home a little while later.
“Bob, do you realize what he just accomplished?”
“Debbie, this is like step number 180 in a 10,000-step process. We’re just getting started here.”
They compromised and left the sign up for 48 hours. I never saw the other decorations again. Bob asked my mom for her help in not letting people get too excited and in keeping people’s expectations in check. He decreed that nobody around Meadowbrook could say the word “Olympic” in my presence.
That week, USA Swimming sent an invitation for an orientation camp in Colorado to over a hundred swimmers the organization felt had a chance to make the Olympic team. The agenda included discussions about jet lag, what the pool was like at the Olympic venue in Sydney, suggestions for things to pack on the trip and so on. My mom told me about it and I wanted to go, but Bob said no. “You’re not on the team yet,” he told me. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.” I made it pretty clear that I was disappointed. “Michael, the way you’ll give yourself the best chance to go to Sydney is by staying here and training.”
Still there was one thing he couldn’t avoid. I had never been out of the country before, so he made sure I went to get a passport application. “What’s this about?” I asked. “Nothing yet,” he said. “Just fill it out. You may need it some day.”
Right after Nationals, it seemed I was spending a lot of time with people in medical robes. First, I was added to the U.S. Olympic Committee’s pool of athletes who needed to be drug tested. As a 14-year-old, growing up into the sport, I found it weird having someone stand next to you and watch you go, especially the first couple of times. But now that I’ve been tested on hundreds of occasions in my career, it’s really not that big a deal.
There are two types of tests: those we take immediately after competitions, when we win an international medal or qualify for a national team; and unannounced tests that officials can conduct at any time. Yup, people can either show up at your front door or at your training facility and insist that you provide a urine sample for drug testing. I can usually sense when I’m due for a random test. Sure enough, I’ll show up at Meadowbrook and the two local testers will be the first people I see when I walk through the door. Really the complicated part is making sure people know your schedule, since the anti-doping officials can call on you at any time. My mom and Bob always know my itinerary, because if I’m unavailable for a random test, that can count as a doping violation and I would be subject to the same penalties as I would be if they found an illegal substance in my system.
The person who conducts the tests probably has the worst job on the planet. But it’s a necessary process. Without it, people would be tempted to cheat. That’s why there are proctors to monitor school tests. Even with it, athletes have been caught taking substances to enhance their performance illegally. We need testing in order to have a clean sport, and I believe we do, especially if you compare swimming to some other sports. The fact is that an anti-drug policy is there to protect the clean athletes, to make sure the competition is fair, to make sure athletes aren’t doing things to their bodies that can hurt them badly in the long run.
I also learned, at that meet, that swimmers are careful never to drink from a cooler that isn’t taped up. The tape indicates that an official was in charge of pouring the water or sports drink into the cooler and he watched to make sure nobody tampered with what’s inside.
Soon after my first doping test, I also went to get checked out for something else. I could feel something wrong one day when I dove into the water at practice. My heart rate was accelerating and Bob suggested I see the doctor. Because I was very flexible and had long hands and feet, I had some early symptoms of Marfan Syndrome, a disease that affects connective tissues and can be fatal if there is leakage to the vessels that lead to the heart. If you reach out your arms and form a T and your wingspan is longer than your height, you can be at risk. In my case, those measurements have always been very close. I didn’t know at the time why the doctor decided to look into this. My mom and Bob didn’t want me to freak out, so they told me that it was simply a good idea for young athletes to have an EKG test in order to look at the heart.
Fortunately everything was, and still is, okay. I have been tested once a year ever since at John’s Hopkins under the direction of Dr. Peter Roe, and the tissues are strong, the aortic route is clear and my heart is in good shape—as long as my Baltimore Ravens are winning.
Next issue: After one of my growth spurts, I had a protruding bone in my shoulder that would grind and shift when I took a stroke. The bone grew faster than the rest of my body could handle, and when I moved my shoulders around, both of them popped out toward the back side. I went to see Scott Heinlein, a local physical therapist, who had me do a few exercises to correct the problem. By having me push against him at a certain angle, he was able to loosen the motions of the joints and reduce the grinding. Since then I’ve gone to see Scott for problems with my shoulders, knees, back and ankles. I’m convinced he does magic. “Here, Mike, move your hips like this, and your knees will get better.” It doesn’t matter how disconnected the pieces seem, he finds the connections. One of these days, he’ll tell me to cure a headache by moving my toes. All I knew after those initial sessions was that he had me ready for Trials in Indianapolis.
Despite Bob’s optimism, I was still swimming under the Olympic radar screen. No male swimmer my age had qualified for a U.S. Olympic team since 1932. In its Olympic Trials forecast that summer, Swimming World magazine wrot
e the following: “Fourteen-year-old Michael Phelps swam a phenomenal 1:59.02 at spring nationals, but is probably a year or two away from being a factor on the world scene.”
9
ME, SECOND?
The Olympic Trials are not for the faint of heart. In years past, it used to be that countries could send three swimmers per individual event to the Games. But in part because the U.S. teams were so strong, the International Olympic Committee voted to reduce that number to two per individual event. You can measure the margin of error on your fingernail. Gary Hall Jr., a three-time Olympian, once compared the stress levels at the two events by saying: “If I’m third at the Olympics, it means I’m on the medal stand in a few minutes; if I’m third at the Trials, it means I’m on the couch for a month.” All the best swimmers in the country were there: Tom Dolan, Lenny Krayzelburg, Jenny Thompson, Dara Torres. I wasn’t as awed by them as I had been at other meets, but I was still unproven.
In Indy, we stayed at the Adam’s Mark. I was in a room by myself and it marked the first trip when I really took advantage of room service. Every night I’d order a chicken sandwich and cheesecake, and I became attached to that meal as I did with clam chowder in Federal Way. I’m glad to report that nobody started calling me Mr. Chicken Sandwich.
The competition was a sort of mixed blessing for us. Over the previous year, Whitney had worked tirelessly to rehab her back and straighten out her diet. After a year out of the pool, she came back and had a great year at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. She was the team’s outstanding newcomer and she made her cut for the Olympic Trials. We were so psyched for her that she won her conference title and was doing so well. After talking it over with her coach at UNLV, Whitney decided to come home in May and train at North Baltimore to work with Murray and Bob and to re-chase her Olympic dream. It was great having her around the pool, but it didn’t take long for the spasms to return to her upper back and for doctors to warn her about a bulging disk. It was a tough decision for her to withdraw, but she didn’t want to represent herself or her club at a sub-par level and she didn’t want to jeopardize her long-term health. It wasn’t fair. We should have been going after our dream together. Instead, it was just me.
Beneath the Surface Page 8