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Missy Franklin takes a rare few seconds to rest during a Regis Jesuit practice. |
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Missy Franklin is just your typical 15-year-old student if typical means being one of the best swimmers in America with hopes of being a member of the U.S. Olympic team in 2012.
It's 4 a.m. and the Franklin household is coming to life. Mom D.A. starts the coffee and wakes her husband, Richard. Ruger, the dog, awakens as Richard puts breakfast in a bag and throws a parka and blanket in the warm dryer for their daughter Missy, just in time for her to make it to the car in her swimsuit.
It's the beginning of another 17-hour day filled with two swim practices, dryland practice and school for Missy Franklin, the 15-year-old Regis Jesuit sophomore and 2012 Olympic swimming hopeful. She is still chauffeured around to each destination by her dedicated parents, who are waiting patiently for her to get her driver's license in July.
Franklin has taken the swimming world by storm over the past two years — breaking into the world's top-10 rankings in seven events — but good luck getting her to brag about it. Missy can't bear her dad putting up Facebook updates about her accom- plishments. The family rarely talks about swimming around the house.
As she leaves home, one of just two visible signs of Missy's success hangs on the entryway wall, a framed copy of the October 2009 issue of Swimmer's World magazine with Missy doing her self-described worst stroke — the breaststroke — on the cover. When Franklin made that magazine cover is when their world began to blow up.
"When you see your daughter on the cover of a magazine, that just blew us away," said D.A., a family physician. "That's what really started it."
The magazine cover, coming after her per- formance at junior nationals, did more than add art to the wall. It aided her in getting a special invitation to join the U.S. national team for the first time at Duel in the Pool in Manchester, England, later that year. Placed in the lead position of the 400 freestyle relay, her time of 52.78 clocked in as the second-fastest leg in U.S. history.
"I didn't know anyone (there)," Franklin said. "I was so young compared to all of them. I was freaking out at the beginning because we were all given teddy bears to sign and throw up into the stands. I didn't want to throw mine because I thought someone will get it and not want it because they won't know who I am. I thought someone would throw it back."
The 6-foot-1 Franklin, who has a 6-foot-4 wingspan, needn't worry about being just another swimmer. America's top prodigy in the sport has a trophy shelf sagging in the middle. The medals that were once held up on a shower rod became too heavy and have found their way into drawers scattered around the house.
Missy has come a long way since maneuvering the pool without floaties as a toddler. She was recently named the youngest member of the U.S. national team set to compete in Shanghai in July, the final international competition before the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
"There has been an acceleration (of attention) as we get closer to London and Missy making the national team," said her father, who estimates the cost of Missy's swimming around the world so far equating to a full-ride college scholarship to a top NCAA school.
Over the past three years, her success has transformed family life from scheduling and travel to trying to fit in bits and pieces of a normal teen's life. Between practice and school, Missy, who manages a 3.95 grade-point average, said she finds ways to keep up with Regis Jesuit's academically rigorous honors schedule by finding her way to the dining room table to study, or her own study, whenever she has a free moment. Her snow days turn into school catch-up days. She occasionally has to take a day off from school just to recuperate.
"We don't have to make sure anything is done," D.A. said. "Missy takes accountability for her swimming, but also she takes responsibility for her schooling."
Her father agrees.
"This girl gives up a lot," he said. "She does very few things very well. There are a lot of distractions, but Missy chooses not to do them."
Missy's sacrifice of personal time has been amply rewarded as she solidifies herself on the international stage. Yet Missy said it is her time spent with her Regis Jesuit teammates that keeps swimming in perspective for her.
"High school swimming is just so much fun," she said. "High school state is unlike any other meet in the world. You know every person, lanes one through eight."
Her life may revolve around the pool, but she doesn't hesitate to be involved in other school activities. In December, at the World Champions meet in Dubai where she won a silver medal, Missy also was contemplating how she would ask a friend to Regis Jesuit's winter formal. She turned to teammate Nathan Adrian for advice.
"Well, just let him know that if he's mean to you that you have a bunch of older brothers on the national team who will go after him," Missy recalled of their conversation.
Her new "family" includes Adrian, Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Natalie Coughlin and other Olympic-caliber athletes. Being around those world-class swimmers has her parents worrying less about their daughter as the baby of Team USA.
"It is hard, when you have a 13-, 14- or 15-year-old, just to hand them over to the USA," D.A. said. "That's what we have done since she has begun making national teams. The only time we see her at meets is from the stands, and occasionally she will come up."
Through a whirlwind of travel, school and swimming, Missy's life can be a blur. Her rising stardom is reaching beyond the pool.
Richard, the co-chair and executive director of Rocky Mountain Cleantech Open, which looks to help clean-energy startup entrepreneurs, said he had a reality check at a recent chamber meeting when John Brackney, president and CEO of the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce, introduced him as Missy Franklin's father, rather than his job title.
"This is just another time when I realized my world was changing," he said with a grin.
D.A. prefers to stay in the background. Though she has traveled the world to follow her daughter, having missed just one of her daughter's meets, you won't find her in the front row making sure everyone knows who Missy is.
"I have always liked to stay in the background," she said. "But I know things are changing, and this last year things have been happening very quickly."
Before they know it, their daughter will be in Shanghai in July for the FINA World Championships and, next summer, the Olympic Trials in Omaha. Then, if everything goes right, it will be on to London and the 2012 Olympics.
It may be time to extend the trophy shelf.
Life in the fast lane
Wake up, breakfast in car, go to pool.
Practice with Colorado Stars, her club swim team.
Breakfast with Stars swimmers who attend Regis Jesuit High School.
Classes at Regis, and lunch.
Homework and meal in car.
Steadman Hawkins Clinic in Lone Tree for physical therapy and dryland training or Regis Jesuit practice.
Meal in car.
Colorado Stars practice.
Ride back home.
Dinner and homework.
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