far side of the fifty meter racing pool and began his pre-meet ritual. He gazed down the pool, following the almost undetectable sway of the blue-white water. Duke Water he called it since above the pool Duke blue and white flags spread over the water in streamers adding their tint to the clear water. Jack bent down, took his hand, cupped it, and pushed the cupped hand out away from him. The water felt colder than usual today. He watched the ripple he’d made until it reached the dividing wall at the far end where the racing pool adjoined the diving tank. He was flat on his stomach, level with the pool, and so close to the water he got a good whiff of chlorine. It acted like smelling salts, bringing him up out of his deep concentration.
Standing up, his vision ranged past the racing pool to the diving tank beyond. His eyes climbed the highest platform and he imagined looking down on the race from up there. Visualizing his race before it happened, he saw himself start, saw where he would hold back, how he should handle the turns and stay under as long as possible, and where he must accelerate to eat up water. They’ll dictate the pace so I must be stronger longer he said to himself. He tapped himself twice over the heart with V-ed fingers.
His swimming senses were so tuned into the physical conditions of the pool and his own body, that he noticed how the hair he’d let grow out, just slightly, absorbed the pool’s moisture more than it ever had before. He was totally zoned-in and ready to get in and warm up.
Entering the water, he heard the chatter of his teammates who had now arrived and were milling around the coaches office. Then, he heard something unusual: Bursting from the P.A. system exploded the full throttled energy of the Beatles singing Help.
Jack looked up.
Phil Dayton had just come out of the media room adjacent to the coach’s office. His junior teammates were gathered around him chuckling. Dayton walked down pool side to be near where Jack was warming up and addressed him.
“I know how much you love your father’s music,” he said to Jack, “and I think this song is apropos for you guys today.”
Jack stood up in the water listening to the music, overlooking Dayton, and then shook his head as if to say you don’t know what you’ve done. “Dayton,” he said, looking at his smug teammate, “you’ve pumped me up big time.” After that, he dove under. His back submerged with such power Dayton’s smirk disappeared, replaced by an expression of irritated concern.
After warm ups, Coach Ross assembled the swimmers near his office. “I’ve decided to alter the medley somewhat by putting the breast stroke last.”
Jack understood exactly what the alteration meant. He and Dayton would go head-to-head one last time.
Then Coach Ross walked, clipboard in hand, down the side of the pool to the far end where the starting blocks stood. Jack watched. The relay was ready to begin. The coach surveyed the fifty meter pool that lie before him, its water still calm. His assistant coaches would officiate. He had directed one to the middle of the pool and one to the dividing wall at the far end. Then he told the swimmers to take their places.
Above the pool, lamps spread the entire length, radiating heat and light. Jack glanced at the line of swimmers before him as they passed directly under the lamps heading to the starting blocks. They looked illuminated. Flashes of their Duke blue and white swim trunks stood out as they moved. The entire natatorium seemed aglow and a palpable energy suffused the air.
Jack stopped as if to take it all in; perhaps conscious of the fact he was looking at his 2001 team for the last time. He looked briefly up at a banner behind him. It read Duke Men’s Team-2001 Big East Champions. Then he turned back toward the pool. He heard the coach announce, “Swimmers, let’s go.”
The relay teams lined up, Jack included. Juniors took lane three, seniors lane four.
The back stroke would go first. The swimmers involved entered the water. Coach Ross checked his officials and then raised the starting gun. Bang, the race was on.
Indiscriminate cheering came from the sides of the pool from underclassmen who looked on with admiring zeal as they watched the junior back-stroker immediately pull ahead. After the first hundred, the juniors were ahead by half a body length. The second leg commenced with butter fliers bolting out from the blocks into churned up water, their arms flying out, up, and over in syncopated unison down the fifty meters where the swimmers dipped into their turns at the wall before blasting back up, all the while kicking, arms turning, and the junior lead growing to a full body length.
Then the third leg, free stylists set free into the water, their streamlined elegance returning some measure of calm to the hitherto agitated pool. Bulleting down and back, they raced faster with this more graceful stroke. But now the junior was not able to sustain the half body length per every hundred lead set in the first two legs. So that coming into the last leg of the relay, the juniors would have to settle for Dayton having just over a body length lead on Jack. Dayton waited to watch his teammate touch the wall and then launched out. Then the senior touched and Jack was in.
He had stood atop the block like an artist’s sculpture of the perfect swimmer: V-shaped, finely wrought, powerfully contained. But when the touch came he uncoiled, exploding off the block, instantly enlivening the race. His long muscular body glided over the water before perfectly piercing a calm pane of it, like light going through glass. Underneath the water for what looked like a third of the pool, his arms pressed against his sides and extended down to his straightened knees, he torpedoed toward the far wall before breaking the water’s surface without resistance. Then he pulled his body in the shape of a cross, the ideal consequence of a beautifully performed stroke.
Dayton fought to hold his lead but where he fought, Jack flowed, the water yielding to his masterly stroke. In a steady, powerful rhythm, Jack surged onward, gaining on Dayton. His kick was so powerful he covered greater distance with every surging stroke. He was a demonstration of the ultimate breast stroke rhythm: pull, breathe, kick, glide . . . pull, breathe, kick, glide . . . gliding powerfully up toward Dayton. So that while Dayton still held the lead going into the wall at the turn, time turned with Jack favoring him going into the last fifty. Dayton fought the water and the clock as Jack, almost breathlessly, came on. One body length from the lead was gone. And then by mid pool in the last fifty, half again of the junior lead disappeared. And there Dayton might as well have stopped for looking back. He turned to see where Jack was and that was all.
The juniors on the side of the pool numbly witnessed the dissolution of a sure thing. Jack took one deep breath and returned Dayton’s glance with a kick and glide that brought him side by side with his rival. And then it was as if Jack had found another gear, as if some invisible motor ignited inside him to propel him. He broke ahead in a surge that didn’t fade. Power gliding to the wall Jack touched first, a half body length ahead of Dayton, setting a school record for his split.
“Christ,” Dayton yelled, coming out of the pool. But Jack didn’t get out. He swam back and grabbed one of the Duke flag lines flying over the pool. Then with flag line in hand, he did an exhilarated lap around the perimeter of the pool, the blue and white flags trailing behind triumphantly, seniors cheering in delight, juniors awestruck, underclassmen swearing to God to be like Jack. Chant-like, the underclassmen passed the name among them as if they were passing a word made flesh: Jack.
Out of the water at last, Jack was raised up by the jubilant seniors and admired by the entire team. Even the juniors were amazed. Coach Ross cut short the adulation, but he too reveled in the result.
“Seniors, line up,” Coach Ross said, “Team, meet them.”
Everyone knew the drill. The senior swimmers formed a line facing another line made by the rest of the team. Then one by one each underclassmen swimmer went down the senior line
