Best of 2008: Athlete – Part 4

The Deep End of a Man called Phelps

I’m a swimmer. I have forced my arms through the resistance of the deep, seen the swirl of patterned aqua on white, felt the weightlessness of my being surrendered to the liquid calling my name to pull forward, forward. I have had the liquid fill my eye sockets and nostrils; I have felt at home in the abyss of that from which we came. I have heard its spiritual call, where I was alone, far from the crowd, alone, just me and that which if I struggle against will take my very life, but if find its connection within me, become one with it, and become triumphant, not against it, but with it. Such is the story of 2008’s greatest athlete, Michael Phelps.

The town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, gives home to the now famous Michael Phelps, hero to the swimmer, hero to the athlete, hero to the American. To elevate the sport of swimming was Michael’s goal, and he has done just that. Mission completed, only that is not all he has done. While it is hard not to say that swimming has been in the eye of the Olympic beholder more than most sports of the summer Olympics, giving the sport its glory and fame that is deserved, enough for those of us to who call ourselves such, to say, we are swimmers, to proclaim, “I am a swimmer,” Michael went on to accomplish more than even he could have seen.

Born June 30, 1985, could this babe have known that someday his best stroke times would climb to 200 fly-1:52.0, 100 fly-50.7, 400 im-47.5, and 200 free-1:42.9? And if you don’t know swimming, it’s good, darn good, good enough for Michael to be the most celebrated athlete of the U.S., good enough for the Olympics, good enough for me, good enough for you. The one called “Sportsman of the Year,” “Athlete of the Year,” “World Swimmer of the Year,” and “American Swimmer of the Year” earns his titles.

His Club Wolverine Swim Team must have been enthralled when the moment came, which he proclaims as his greatest moment in swimming, the 4×200 free relay. The twelve years of painful workouts, which he attests to, paid off, paid off in the home of athletes, Athens, Greece, and then in a far away Beijing. As he read and envied the swimmer Pablo Morales, Michael, this student of the University of Michigan, would rise to be a Pablo, to be more than his own Morales.

Poker and music, he proclaims his interests; yet, I suggest perhaps a slight love for the splashing water and ripping his body through its torrents, as well. One could say the quote which