He was good at nearly everything related to a pool, but his best and favorite event was the 200 meter backstroke. During his freshman varsity season he was winning nearly every race he was in, and those he didn’t win were usually do to either an injury (he commonly strained his muscles from overtraining, no matter how many times we and his coaches told him to ease up) or forfeiting the race due to a school project or assignment he just couldn’t miss. That was the year coaches started to really approach him, and tell him about all the things he could have if he went pro.

He asked me about it. Granted, it wasn’t as if he’d never been approached before, but I’m sure it had started to sound much more appealing to him lately. I had no idea what to tell him, though. I knew he was really talented and I wanted him to have a shot, but I also wanted him to have a normal childhood, and to me that included high school. I didn’t want him sacrificing his studies for the sport. He brought up the tutors he’d been promised, and I conceded that they’d be good ones. Still, I knew that if he went to live at a training facility, academics would be second place to swimming. I told him that I knew from experience; he was good, and good athletes, at that level, were always extorted for their talent. While it was true that he’d have tutors, it wouldn’t matter much in the long run. If he was there at a professional level, it would be to swim, not to study.

He said he understood that and that it would make him think about it. While he loved swimming, he admitted that he wasn’t all that anxious to leave his friends and live a life like he’d seen on some of the documentaries of young athletes that Alice was so fond of. He said that for as much as he loved swimming, he didn’t know if he was ready to go that far. He wanted to compete, but at an amateur level, at least for the time being.

Alice was elated at this news, and I was pretty proud of him myself. I saw it as a very mature decision to make at his age, and I thought it was the right one. I didn’t want him to have to worry about his career while he was still so young. I wanted him to go to prom, to walk at graduation, and all the other things kids are supposed to do.