Finding Ultra (8 page)

That night, the two Johns and I made our way up and down the stands from one keg to the next, our frivolity slowly escalating. As the game wrapped up, our merriment devolved into a wrestling match in the stands. Laughing hysterically, I watched the two Johns go at it, both impossibly strong, matching might and muscle.

Then the rain started to fall. Jogging our way laterally across the slippery aluminum bleachers under the dark sky illuminated by the halogen stadium lights, we realized it was time to depart in search of the next party. And that's when it happened. Leaping from one bleacher to the next across the aisle, my flip-flop slipped on the wet surface, sending my drunken body downward.
Crack!
My chest made impact with the sharp metal corner of the next bleacher bench, and I went down. Lying on my back, I knew I'd broken my first bone ever—a rib, maybe two. I couldn't believe it. Just one week away from my first meet against our biggest rival, and I'd injured myself in my drunken stupor.
How could I be so stupid!?
As I lay on my back, I opened my eyes to the rain falling down onto my face and the hysterical laughter of the two Johns. Resolved to not let them see my pain, I snapped up. And fueled by alcohol, I shrugged it off.

“Where to, boys?”

But the next day, I could barely inhale, let alone swim. Each stroke sent bolts of pain through my chest and up my spine. X-rays confirmed that I'd fractured two ribs. It was my first true negative repercussion from drinking, but not my last. And not anything that would motivate me to modify my behavior. I was just getting started. What happened to me could have happened to anybody, right? After all, it was wet and dark—who said my slip had anything to do with drinking? At least, that's the story I told myself. But the fact remained that just one week from the day we'd be challenging the mighty Longhorns, I couldn't even take a stroke. With no alternative, I was forced to take the entire week off of training; not ideal, but my only hope to heal up somewhat in time for the meet. Come Saturday, I was still in a lot of pain. Yet there was just no way I was going to kick off my Stanford career by sitting out my first meet. So I somehow convinced Skip I was fine, and he allowed me to compete, never the wiser about how my injury had actually occurred.

As I mounted the blocks for the 200-yard butterfly, I looked to my right. There was Longhorns standout Bill Stapleton, who'd later compete in the 1988 Olympic Games before achieving acclaim as Lance Armstrong's longtime agent. But at the time, I knew him only as one of the world's greatest butterfliers. And another lane over was teammate Anthony Mosse, then ranked second in the world in this event.

The starting gun exploded, and we were off, my rib pain made bearable only by the adrenaline of the moment. After the first 50 yards, I already trailed both Bill and Anthony by half a body length. I tried not to panic, knowing I always excelled on the back half. But after 100 yards, their lead increased to a full body length. Time to throw in the towel or double down. So I put my head down and got to work, determined not to let this moment pass without my best fight. Each stroke felt like a sword being thrust into my side, but I ignored the pain and just accelerated, my lungs screaming for air. At 150 yards I'd actually narrowed the gap to almost even, pushing off for the final 50 yards with abandon.
Now is the time
, I thought. I'd come so far. And here I was, in this moment I never dreamed would happen, matching stroke for stroke with two of the best swimmers in the entire world. As I turned for the final 25 yards, I'd actually pulled ahead of both Bill and Anthony.
I was leading the race! I can win this! Is this really happening?!
But the thought removed me from the moment. For an instant, I'd taken my head out of the game—the death knell in a sport where hundredths of a second make all the difference. Or maybe I just didn't feel I deserved to beat these guys; after all, I was just an unknown “walk-on.” Then again, it could just have been the pain in my rib cage. Or my body seizing up from making my move too soon. Anthony had just barely nudged me for the victory. Once again, second place.

And yet I'd beaten Bill. And taken everyone—my teammates
and Skip included—by complete surprise. Nobody, and I mean nobody, had thought I had the ability to perform as I had—especially with two broken ribs. Leaning over the lane lines to shake hands—both Longhorn orange and Cardinal red—I looked to the pool deck to witness the raucous cheers of my new teammates, thrilled by my underdog effort.

By unanimous vote, I was awarded “Outstanding Performance” of the meet. And later that week Skip would call John Hodge and me into his office to declare that we were the team's future leaders. Come senior year, he anticipated that we'd co-captain the squad, so we'd better start assuming the role now.

I couldn't believe it. Just a few months before, I'd held out little hope that I could ever compete with the best. And now I'd done it. And my freshman season had only begun. I was blinded by the bright light of the future that lay within my grasp. But little did I know then that this moment would be the highlight of my entire swimming career. It was the beginning of the end. Alcohol would soon take it all away.

From the moment Bruce Kimball handed me my very first beer that snowy Michigan night, I knew subconsciously that alcohol just might pose a problem for me. Maybe not right then, but somewhere down the line. Although a miracle salve to my social inadequacies, I just liked it
too much
. I wasn't raised in an alcoholic household—far from it, in fact—but I knew enough to know that this magnetic attraction could not be good. My fall on the stadium bleachers only sealed that subliminal conviction. It didn't mean I was going to do anything about it; it was just an early sign of the evidence soon to come. So I filed the thought away.
If I pretend it's not a problem, then there's no problem
.

But it didn't take long before one drunken night a week morphed into two. By spring of my freshman year, I was partying four to five nights a week. But wasn't that what college was supposed to be all about? So what if I shirked studying in exchange for a Wednesday night kegger at the Phi Delt house? I still maintained mostly A's. And when you're young and strong, it's no big deal to shrug off a hangover, put in a morning workout, and show up for class prepared. Sure, I had a little alcohol on my breath when my bare feet hit the concrete DeGuerre Pool deck at 6
A.M.
, but I wasn't the only one. And I never overslept.

At the Pac-10 Championships during the spring of my freshman year, I managed to clock my best swimming times. But I still
fell just short of meeting the minimum time standards required to attend the NCAA Division I Championships. I was disappointed. But on some level, I also didn't believe I deserved to make the cuts. The following month, Stanford secured its second consecutive NCAA Championship victory in Indianapolis. But I stayed home, denied a coveted championship ring. To top it off, I'd never again clock a best time.

During my sophomore and junior years, I continued to swim, but the love dwindled, fading until it was lost entirely. For the first time in my life swimming was a chore. I was sick of feeling exhausted all the time. I remember “Christmas Training” my sophomore year—an annual event during which the team would return to a dormant campus early from winter break, cohabiting in a vacant fraternity house to do nothing but train, day in and day out, for two weeks straight, until our eyeballs hurt. Other than eat, I did nothing but sleep between sessions, only to awake to one singular emotion—
dread
.

And hence began a slow abandonment of my many lofty goals, both in and out of the pool. As my interest in swimming waned, so did my regard for essentially everything else aspirational—everything besides staying out late, getting drunk, and having the best time possible. I even dropped out of my declared major, human biology, mysteriously discarding my medical school ambition. The only recollection I have of my rationale is,
Who needs the hassle?
My focus narrowed to only that which was right in front of me. In other words,
Where is my next good time?
Alcohol will do that.

Sophomore year, my swimming times reflected my loss of focus, a pattern that escalated in my junior year. Predictably, I would continue to fail to qualify for NCAAs, missing out again on the opportunity to participate in Stanford's championship win (their third consecutive) and collect a ring. In preparation for the Pac-10
Swimming Championships held during the spring of my junior year, I pledged to myself and to my swimming peers not to drink for a month leading up to what would be my biggest meet of the year, and I had high hopes of finally making the NCAA squad. Sadly, I couldn't even make it a week. Needless to say, my Pac-10 performances that year were woefully poor—pathetic, in fact. Despite the thousands of miles I'd swum since my arrival at Stanford, I'd swum faster in high school than I did at that meet. But rather than address my escalating dependence on alcohol, I just quit the sport altogether.

I can't say the decision was easy. I labored over it for weeks.

During the spring off-season, I stopped by Skip's office. “I've decided to hang it up, Skip. I just can't do it anymore.”

I'd expected him to fight me on my decision, talk me off the ledge and convince me to stay—tell me how much the team still needed me. Instead, he just shrugged his shoulders, barely lifting his gaze from the newspaper he was reading.

“Okay, Rich. Good luck.”

Then, silence. I had no reply for his unexpected nonchalance. Was this some sort of passive-aggressive tactic? A Jedi mind trick? As a former marine who voluntarily enlisted his services as a crack sniper in Vietnam, Skip is a take-no-prisoners badass, renowned for his mastery of the mind game and penchant for fits and tantrums—he's a legend in the annals of college swimming. But the truth was, he knew I didn't care anymore. So why should
he
? For the last three years he'd watched from the pool deck as I squandered the countless opportunities presented. He had better things to focus on than my pity party—things like a coveted fourth consecutive NCAA title. And real athletes devoted to their sport and determined to be the best. I just wasn't one of those guys anymore. He knew it as well as I did.
Good riddance
.

Looking back, I wonder what might have become of my swimming career had I decided to address my drinking back then. But hindsight is always 20/20. And at the time, I had little capacity for introspection. A scrupulous look in the rearview would have required a courage and capability I simply lacked. And thus began my nosedive into the grips of denial—the defining characteristic of the alcoholic. I blamed my failures on everything but myself—on Skip for his attitude, on a program that left me overtrained, on my parents for being overprotective, on the studies that took priority, and on a God I didn't believe in for letting me down.

After my brief conversation with Skip, I was overcome by a deep sense of sadness and loss—it was a kind of mourning. For as long as I could remember, swimming had been all I cared about. And now—just like that—it was gone. I was unprepared for the emotions that welled up inside me, causing not just confusion, but vertigo—as if I was in free fall.
What now?
I thought, realizing I'd never really put any reflection into who I was, what truly interested me or what I wanted to pursue outside the pool. Disoriented, I got into my old green Volvo and headed alone up to Marin County—beautiful countryside north beyond San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. Sitting atop a hillside above the port of Sausalito, I peered out toward Alcatraz and realized that I was lost. The tears welled up. And I cried my eyes out for the better part of an hour.

I wish I could say that was a moment of clarity in which I realized that alcohol had killed my swimming career and it was high time I addressed my problem and pulled myself together, before things got really bad. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. When the tears dried up and the catharsis passed, I felt
only relief—a sense of being liberated from the chlorine prison that had shackled me for as long as I could remember. Funny how the mind works, that I could so quickly forget the love I had for my sport and how far it had taken me. But at that moment, it represented little more than an impediment to my good time. And so I returned to campus, where I wasted no time immersing myself in anything and everything associated with fun. Fun, for me, meant getting drunk. Very drunk.