“Dude, how do you know the words?” I asked him.
“It’s a remake of a Madonna song. She did it like 15 years ago.”
“She did? Oh.”
Jamie and I teased each other about a lot of things—food, for instance.
“He’ll have one Michael sandwich of deep fried cholesterol.” (For the record, a Michael sandwich is buttered and jellied on both slices of bread and contains two eggs, four slices of bacon and one slice of American cheese.)
“And he’ll have one Jamie sandwich with bread and lettuce, but go easy on the lettuce.” (For the record, a Jamie sandwich sometimes contains extra lettuce. Oooo.)
I’ve always been grateful for my friends. When Matt and Ayo were both on the football team, they used to kid me about swimming being a non-contact sport. I’d offer to trade practices with them and see how long they lasted. We could rip one another at will and nobody would get mad … usually. Ayo is a big guy, about 6-5 and much stockier than I am. One day in junior high, Matt and I were sort of messing around with Ayo and it was getting to him more than we realized. We were walking back home from school and I tossed a stick in his direction. I didn’t intend to conk him on the head, but my aim was off. He rushed at me and body-slammed me against the concrete. Five minutes later, we were all laughing again. It’s a guy thing.
A few years later, I became good friends with a buddy of Matt’s named Corey Fick. The four of us would hang out, shoot hoops and play cards and video games. Those guys always looked after me and didn’t mind setting people straight if they overheard anyone saying negative things about me.
The guys have always been extremely supportive about my swimming, too, making sure we didn’t do anything (apart from body slamming) that could affect my health. Because I’d have to get up for practice, I was an earlier riser than any of them. If I was hanging out at Corey’s house and getting tired, I was always welcome to stay over and Corey always took the couch so I could have the bed.
If we played basketball, the guys would actually call out picks to make sure I didn’t get knocked around:
“Mike, right here.”
“Mike, behind you.”
“Mike, watch out.”
Corey always joked that he didn’t want Tom Brokaw coming to his door asking, “How does it feel to ruin Michael’s career?”
For the most part I’d limit my game to outside shots unless we fell behind and I got restless. Of course, if I airballed a jumper, I got no sympathy from anyone: “Getting tips from Stevie Wonder again, Mike?” It was funny to see the concerned reaction from Corey’s mom after one of our games: “Michael, don’t tell me you’re sweating.”
The three of us have a running joke about an imaginary character named Frank. We’re not sure where he came from, how we met him or why we know him, but every time we have a question, a dispute or a problem, we invoke the name of Frank. I think it started one day when Corey and Matt were trying to fake me into saying I knew who they were talking about.
“Frank’s a nice guy, isn’t he, Mike?”
“Huh? Who’s Frank?”
“C’mon, Mike, you know Frank.”
“Never heard of him.”
“We should call him right now.”
“Yeah, but who is he?”
“Mike, he’s the guy from Spain. Think he’s awake right now?”
“I don’t even know who he is.”
The grins on the faces eventually revealed Frank as somebody’s idea of a prank, but we’ve certainly asked enough people about him over the last year. I still have the hat Matt and Corey gave me that had Frank’s name on the front and Phelps ’04 on the back. You can never replace friends, and I’m sure that wherever he is and whatever he’s doing, even Frank would agree.
16
THE POWER OF WORDS
NBC gave me a microphone to wear during my graduation ceremony from Towson High. First of all, I couldn’t believe a) that the day finally arrived and b) I agreed to let NBC throw a microphone on me. It was pretty intimidating and I was very careful not to say anything I didn’t want them to use on the air. Some guys around me started talking trash and making funny noises, so I had my hand over the microphone half the time. I was very aware of saying something I’d regret. Actually, that’s one of my biggest fears in press conferences. I want to trust reporters who are there to do a job, but sometimes I get very cautious. I don’t like interviews to go in directions I’m not expecting.
My media trainers worked with me on feeling more comfortable and on other details. They trained me to incorporate so-called talking points into my press conferences, such as mentions of sponsor names. If I can say Speedo or AT&T in my answers, they want me to do that if it fits with the questions. If, for example, somebody asks, Michael, tell us about the last 50 meters of the race, I’m not going to talk about my favorite kind of watch, but if somebody asks me about how I celebrate after a race, the fact is I text message my friends left and right with whatever free time I have. If they ask about swimsuits, I can talk all day about the FS2, the state-of-the-art Speedo suits. Sponsors are a big help, so I try to acknowledge them.
Sometimes I’ll use what is called a bridging technique. If somebody asks me about the swimmer in the lane next to me, for instance, I’m glad to acknowledge his result, but I can’t tell what he was thinking or feeling. So I try to guide my answer to a transition to a discussion about my race, since I do know what I was thinking about. If someone asks: “Michael, do you have a girlfriend?” My answer might be, “Right now, my focus is pretty much on getting ready for Trials, so I don’t have much time for anything else. I’m sure I’ll have time later this fall to relax and have some fun.”
People have told me I’ve become more guarded in my answers than I used to be, but actually, one of my biggest fears is saying the wrong thing at a press conference. If you say something you don’t quite mean, you can qualify, clarify, and re-state something a hundred times, but there are reporters who will jump on an opportunity to make a point that fits their story angle. If the angle is that you’re a bad guy, they have a better chance to make you look like one the more you elaborate on your answers. I know that is only the case with a few people, but I have seen it happen enough. There is one reporter in Australia who seems intent on comparing me to Ian all the time and making the point that I am not as good a swimmer in the pool or as good a representative of swimming outside of the pool as he is.
So, to set the record straight about Ian Thorpe, nobody admires what Ian has accomplished more than I do. I am envious every time I see him swim freestyle, because his stroke is powerful and effortless and it is the blueprint for me when I swim freestyle events, as it should be for every other freestlyer in the world. Second, I have always admired the way Ian has conducted himself given all the attention he has received. I am only now starting to understand what it has been like for him for the past several years—ever since he was just 15!—because of the way Australians regard swimming. He is never flustered and always seems to know what to say and how to handle himself. Because of Ian, fans in Australia can admire swimming even more than they did ten or 15 years ago. He has taken a sport that was already number one in his country and moved it forward, which is a tremendous accomplishment. I have a strong desire to race against him and try to beat him because of how much I respect him. To compete in any race with Ian in the field is the ultimate, but it has always been competitive, not personal. I thrive on whatever will motivate me, whether it is another swimmer’s presence or someone else’s words, so I measure myself against him not to put him down, but to lift my performance up. That’s as high a compliment as I can pay another swimmer.
Now, as for words … we were in Santa Clara training for the Janet Evans meet that was coming up in a few days when Bob came over to the pool and showed me a clip that had run in the Australian papers. The article quoted Don Talbot, a consultant to the Aussie team and its former head coach. In part, the article read: “We’ve got Ian Thorpe and they’re try
ing to say they’ve got someone even better. In the major international meets, Phelps has done nothing yet. Obviously something’s going to happen at the Worlds, but I think the Worlds will be a bit of a crossroads for him to see just what he can do when he gets up against the world’s best…. We know Phelps is a good boy, but people trying to say he’s a greater swimmer than Ian—that’s absolute nonsense…. The promise for Phelps is there, but for people saying he’s going to outdo Thorpie, I live to see that day.”
I was furious. Done nothing yet? You mean winning a world championship and breaking a world record isn’t proving yourself? There are ways to say certain things and stick up for your own swimmers without being disrespectful to someone else. I wanted to show him otherwise. I had a job to do and I wanted to prove I could do it. That lit a fire under my butt for the rest of the summer.
More fuel. Before the meet in Santa Clara, a Finnish journalist asked if I really thought I could break the world record in the 200 IM (1:58.16) held since 1994 by his countryman Jani Sievinen. I told him what I usually say, that anything is possible. I say that because I never want to assume I’ll do something before I actually do it and because I never want to count anything out. “Yes, but then maybe you think it is too difficult,” he said. “Nobody has done this for nine years, so maybe it will not happen. Why do you think you can do it?” I hadn’t said that I could, but I wasn’t ready to say that I couldn’t. We went around in circles like that for a while and it was clear that he was a doubter. For a long time, I was too. To be honest, I thought Sievinen’s record was the most impressive one on the books. He split the back half of his race in under a minute, which included his breaststroke leg, and he beat the previous record, 1:59.36 by Hungary’s Tamas Darnyi, by over a second. I really wanted to wipe that one off the books, because it seemed so intimidating.
I tossed and turned the night before the race, but it didn’t seem as though conditions were right for the record. I wasn’t shaved and I wasn’t tapered, because Bob had me aiming for the world championships a month later, but I had been training really well. Before the race, Bob went over some projected split times with me and he had me just under Sievinen’s time. “What do you want me to do, break a world record?” I asked him. “Why not?” he said.
I dove in and was trying to hold myself back. I could hear the crowd go nuts each time I came up for air and I could feel the emotion carrying me, so I just tried to keep my form. I could tell I was swimming a PR and I thought I was breaking the record. I hit the wall, turned, saw the board, and threw my arms up. 1:57.94. That was my answer. Impossible? 1:57.94. Unproven? 1:57.94. Too difficult? 1:57.94. That bump on my shoulder was a big chip and I carried it with me for the rest of the summer each time I got on the blocks.
After the meet in Santa Clara, I came home to celebrate my 18th birthday. Imagine three causes for celebration (graduation, world record, turning 18) all within a month.
It was also an important period because I was having a difficult time with my dad. Over the past few years, we’d been having stilted conversations at his place maybe once a month and not much more. With the World Championships looming, I had two round-trip tickets to Spain available for me to give to anyone I wanted. I gave one to my mom, of course, and I decided to give the second one to Hilary, since they would enjoy traveling together and since she had been coming to most of my meets.
My dad got upset a few days after graduation because he felt that he should have the second ticket. The older I got, the more I was able to express to him how I felt about things. I was just coming out of my shell enough to confront him. At first, he confronted Mom, accusing her of making sure I didn’t give him one of the tickets. Then he and Mom called me over and I told him it was my decision to give the ticket to Hilary. I didn’t look at it as a choice of who shouldn’t get the ticket, but rather who should get it.
“Dad, look how many meets Hilary has been to. She’s always taking off work. She’s always there.”
“Michael, I can’t believe this.”
“Well, I don’t know what to say. It’s my decision.”
I told him I was still hoping he’d get to Barcelona, but I felt Hilary deserved the ticket. Instead, he decided not to go because of the cost. Of course, he also didn’t come to my meet in College Park, Maryland. It felt a little like he didn’t want to support me, although he may have felt I wanted him to stay away. I thought he didn’t want to be there to watch me swim, hopefully at my best. My mom was there to support me no matter what the cost was. Somehow I thought my dad didn’t feel the same way. I thought he might not have wanted to put out the extra money to see his son swim. I called him one more time to talk about everything and he didn’t call me back. There was no call back either after this world record just as he hadn’t called after the first one I had set in Austin. There was no call back on my birthday. I don’t know if he was trying to prove a point, but if you don’t call your son on his birthday, it’s a good indication that there isn’t too much going on there.
Before I left for Worlds, I made one of those careless moves that could have jeopardized everything I’d worked for. It was 8 p.m. and my cell wasn’t working inside. I made a call outside and casually started spinning my rims with my feet while I was wearing flip-flops. I went to kick at the rims and didn’t pull back fast enough. The rims nailed my right big toe and the toe stayed black for some time. It wasn’t a problem to get through workouts, but every time I put pressure on the toe, I was aware that I had done something dumb. The toenail started wearing away over the next six months until it finally fell off whole.
At the time, I was on the campaign trail with Mom, the I-want-a-dog campaign trail. I had been talking about getting a puppy for a while, and I sort of proposed that if I could break a world record in Barcelona that I could look into adopting one. A lab? A retriever? A terrier? So many good choices. Mom wasn’t totally against the idea, but she wanted to make sure I was willing to do the necessary walking and feeding. Of course given my travel schedule, some of that responsibility would fall on her shoulders. We discussed it and agreed to discuss it again.
Actually, if you met our cat, you would think we already had a dog. Hilary brought Savannah home after her junior year of college, and she became family very quickly. I think of myself as more of a dog person, but I’m convinced that Savannah is really a dog dressed up as a cat. She will eat anything within paw’s reach, and she isn’t picky. She’s been known to grab lettuce out of a salad and put her face into open jars. One day, she helped herself to a facefull of horseradish cheese and was still squinting her eyes and furiously licking her lips three hours later. Savannah slept under my arm at night and hopped into my lap whenever I sat at the kitchen table. She always followed me when I walked up the stairs, and if I would run up two at a time, she would sprint along right behind me. Face it, we think we adopt pets, but really they adopt us.
17
FIVE DOGS?
I knew the World Championships in Barcelona were going to be a different meet than the Olympics or my first worlds when I had only the one race. This time, I was looking at up to six events: two IMs, two butterflys, and two relays. It was a great dry run for the crowded schedule I might be looking at in Athens and each day Bob had everything figured out to the minute: when I would warm up, warm down, take my laps, get my lactate tests, have a snack between races. His paranoia and my swimming would really be put to their first big test.
After all that hassle about who would come to Barcelona to watch me swim, the answer was almost nobody. Mom and Hilary arrived at Heathrow Airport in London for their connecting flight into Spain only to learn that employees from their carrier, British Airways, had gone on strike. The walkout also stranded families of other swimmers, including Ed Moses and Diana Munz. Anthony Ervin’s family was trapped at another airport. The police told everyone that if they decided to leave the airport, they would not be allowed back in. Mom and Hilary slept on the airport floor and didn’t shower for two days. They finall
y arrived at 1 a.m. into Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, where security was only letting people out who had European passports. So they had to stay at that airport until 6 a.m. When they finally made it into Barcelona on the morning of the first races, they headed straight for the arena, without a shower or a proper meal.
The 200 fly the next day was my first event. We wanted a repeat of the final in Fukuoka and for the first major competition since the 2001 worlds, I had the necessary amount of butterfly training under my belt to pull it off. The best way to swim the 200 fly, we figured, was to go out fast and hold on. I did exactly what we talked about and broke the world record in the semis, lowering it to 1:53.93. I didn’t quite keep to the gameplan in the final, when I trailed Ukraine’s Denis Sylant’yev at the first two walls, but I took over the lead with 80 meters to go and won the race by over a second. I came back faster than I had ever done (59.08 over the last 100 meters) in that event. It was a lesson learned to listen to your coach because he knows what he’s talking about. Tom finished third and it was great to get to get the title back that I had lost in Yokohama. “They used to handicap horses by adding weights to them,” Tom joked after the race. “Maybe we can weight Michael.”
We came back less than an hour later for the finals of the 4x200 free relay. I led off with an American record 1:46.60, and the four of us (Me, Nate Dusing, Aaron Peirsol and Klete Keller) broke the American record for the race in 7:10.26. We still finished nearly two full seconds behind the Australians, who seemed almost unbeatable in the race. Still, we were only a tenth of a second behind until the last leg when Klete just couldn’t keep up with Ian Thorpe. Whatever was in Klete’s head after the race, he must have realized that the Olympic final a year later would probably come down to he and Thorpe in the final 200 again.
Beneath the Surface Page 14