Short course season ended without Junior National cuts, but as the summer before my senior year approached, I felt better and more focused in the pool than I had in ages. We headed to the first long course meet of the season, a championship-style meet held at the natatorium in Orlando just after I turned seventeen. I’d already gotten off the track of being truly elite, and I didn’t think I’d ever get back onto it. A full scholarship to Tennessee was no longer a realistic possibility. Perhaps that’s why I climbed to the blocks for the preliminary heat of my first 100 Butterfly of the season feeling looser than I had in years. The 100 Fly was no longer my best event, but I knew as I climbed those blocks that my long wait was over.
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| Swim Team page from my senior high school yearbook. Our team had a perfect season. We won all of our dual meets, plus the Western Conference and District Championships. We finished 22nd at the Florida State Championship Meet. |
I went something like :57.8 in prelims that morning and finally qualified for Junior Nationals21. I went even faster that night. I made my cuts in the 200 Fly the next day—going something like 2:07, well below the cut time—and that was that. Without the pressure of some undreamed of destiny, I finally let go and just swam.
I was still off-track for a truly elite future. I knew that. What I didn’t know was whether Junior National cuts would mean anything to a rising high school senior. I knew that I was never going to make the Olympic team. But that didn’t have to be some crushing disaster. Did it? I’d just proven that I was indeed very good at my best events. I had a future in my sport; I just didn’t know what that future was. At some level, I also knew that I needed to broaden my perspective to find some measure of balance through the rest of my life. In some ways, then, the loss of my dream was also an opportunity.
Beyond that, making those cuts was a relief beyond measure. The rest of that summer passed in a blur, and if Juniors themselves were something of an anti-climax—I certainly didn’t go down there and kick ass, as my friend Jennifer once did—I nevertheless managed to make incremental improvements all season. After what felt like an eternity of frustrated stagnation, this made swimming fun again.
* * *
As it happens, having Junior National cuts was worth quite a bit. People ask me now, “How do I know if my kid is good enough to get a scholarship?”
If your son or daughter has made it to Junior Nationals, they’re good enough.
This is not necessarily true for the biggest of big-time college swimming programs, but as a general rule, if a kid has been to Juniors, someone somewhere will pay him or her to swim. He or she may not get a full ride, but opportunities are out there for those willing to look.
* * *
My first recruiting letter came towards the end of the summer. It was from Louisiana State University. It said, essentially, “Have you thought about swimming at LSU? We have a team, and we think we could use you.”
My mother was sold instantly. LSU wasn’t Tennessee, but it was Southeastern Conference, and that was good enough for her. I took the ACT the next week and sent them my scores. The Tigers sent back an admissions packet.
“Welcome to LSU! Go Tigers!!!”
By that time, though, I’d gotten the call that changed everything.
“Have you thought about swimming at Harvard?” This wasn’t a letter. This was Harvard’s Head Swim Coach calling in person on our telephone.
Just like that, my world upended itself. I’d spent years thinking of myself in the context of a specific future. I had this conception of myself—Dan Head, Olympian, member of the University of Tennessee Swim Team, core contributor to the squad that finally returned the Volunteers to the National Championship. Over the course of the last six months, however, I’d begun to realize that this was not a vision that I was going to be able to bring to fruition. I didn’t matter how hard I worked. It just wasn’t going to happen. And now, here was a new vision. A better vision, honestly, if I considered the entirety of my life in a more complete context.
Dan Head, Ivy League Swimming Champion.
I thought that I could do that. The more I considered it, the more it seemed like an authentic conception of who I truly wanted to be.
Then Coach Ray Bosse called from West Point, and I really had a conundrum.
* * *
With a 1430 SAT, a 32 ACT, a 4.0 unweighted grade point average, and Junior National cuts in two separate swimming events, I was eventually recruited by pretty much every school in the country. I was not recruited by Stanford, and I got absolutely no interest whatsoever from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Everyone else sent me at least a letter, and we wound up taking phone calls from most of the Ivies, all three service academies, and a wide variety of other colleges. I wondered idly what it would be like to swim for Division III Goucher, with its eighty-five percent female student body, but this was just idle speculation. In fact, I quickly narrowed my options to three. The University of Tennessee offered a four year academic scholarship with a year’s study abroad through its Whittle Scholars program. Needless to say, my mother was very keen on it. I would have been Tennessee’s number three or four butterflyer, however, and I would have had to try to walk on. My prospects didn’t look good. I also doubted that I could swim in the SEC and maintain the grades I needed to stay in that fancy scholarship program. Also, even with the year’s study abroad, it was hard to argue that Tennessee offered more than either Harvard or West Point did as a matter of course.
Harvard, Yale, and all three service academies badly wanted me as a swimmer. I turned Air Force and Yale down over the phone, at least partly because I needed to narrow my options. I never really considered Air Force. My father’s influence was simply too strong. As far as Dad was concerned, you either fought hand-to-hand with a bayonet, or you landed warplanes on aircraft carriers, or you weren’t a Real Man. This was not complicated.
But then… who turned down Harvard to go to the nation’s number two service academy?
To me, you either went to the nation’s oldest, most-prestigious civilian college, or you went to the nation’s oldest, most-prestigious military academy. If those were your choices, why look at lesser schools?
I scheduled my recruiting visits for the coming spring.
Whatever was next, I wanted all of it. Not just swimming, but everything else, too.
21. 100 meters is a bit longer than 100 yards, and long course races have fewer flip-turns—and thus fewer push-offs from the wall—than short course races of the same distance. For these reasons, long course times are slower than their short course equivalents.
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