SUCCESS STORY

Michael Phelps and Disadvantages to Advantages

By Jonathan Jarl | Mathematics Major, Computer Science Minor

Michael Phelps, Aaron Peirsol, Brendan Hansen, and Jason Lezak all walk out from the ready room. The four swimmers walk to the lane four starting block. The shouts and screams of the crowd can be heard as the swimmers get prepared for the big race. Starting the 400 Medley Relay, Aaron Peirsol will swim the backstroke followed by Brendan Hansen with the breaststroke. Michael Phelps will swim third with the butterfly, and Jason Lezak will be the anchor swimming the freestyle. In the history of the Olympics, the United States never lost this race. The pressure is on for the team and especially Phelps. He already took the gold medal in seven other events tying the world record for amount of gold medals won at one Olympic competition. If the United States wins this race, Phelps will have eight gold medals, breaking the previous record.

The whistle blows, and Aaron Peirsol slides into the water along with the seven other swimmers. A second whistle blows and the referee then says, “Take Your Mark!” The buzzer goes off and all eight backstroke swimmers lunge off the wall. Peirsol swims smoothly through the water and touches the far wall ten one-hundredths of a second ahead of the world record time. Aaron Peirsol had previously injured his elbow in the games, but that still doesn’t prevent him from getting the fastest split in the first leg of the Medley. Brendan Hansen jumps in just as Peirsol touches the wall. Hansen doesn’t have as good of fortune as Peirsol did. His breaststroke is slower than normal and he ends up moving the team down into third place after the second leg of the relay. As Hansen is coming into the wall, Phelps is standing up on the block being as steady as could be and is ready to jump into the water at lightning speed. Hansen touches the wall way behind the Japanese swimmer in lane 3 and slightly behind the Australian swimmer in lane five. Phelps shoots off the block like the bullet out of a gun. Right off the start, he catches up to the Japanese swimmer and is nearly tied with him until they reach the far wall. After Phelps pushes off the wall with tremendous force, he gains a slight lead over the Japanese and Australian swimmers. He lengthens the lead by kicking it into high gear and swims faster than ever. When Phelps touches the wall, he is about half a body length ahead of the second place swimmer and his split is fifty-two hundredths off of the world record. Jason Lezak dives into the water as soon Phelps touches the wall. Because Phelps had such a great swim, Lezak is able to hold onto the lead that Phelps gave to him and can cruise into the wall for a 1st place win. At this point, the crowd is on their feet and screaming their lungs out because they all know that Michael Phelps just won his eighth gold medal and broke the record for the most gold medals (Jacklondon5111 2012).

Phelps broke many records at the 2008 Olympics, which includes breaking the record for the most gold medals in a single Olympics. It can easily be said that Phelps is a successful swimmer due to all of the accomplishments he has made. How did he come to be so successful though? Phelps has been swimming since he was seven years old. Does the saying “practice makes perfect” come into play here? Could it be that he swam so much before the 2008 Olympics that he just became the perfect swimmer and could do almost anything? Malcolm Gladwell gives us the theory of 10,000 hours. It states that once a person does about 10,000 hours of work in their profession, they can be said to have hit the status of being a professional (Outliers, 39–40). This theory applies so well with Phelps because he has had almost 16 years of swimming prior to the 2008 Olympics. There is still something though that doesn’t make any sense. Phelps’s high school didn’t have a swim team, so where did he swim? There has got to be more to the picture here that can’t be seen. Besides, Phelps used to be afraid of the water when he was younger. Even though he started swimming at age seven, he was still afraid to put his head under the water (“Michael Phelps: Biography” 2012). It can easily be seen that Phelps got his 10,000 hours into swimming which helped him become a successful swimmer, but was there something else that gave him an extra boast to get him to where he is now?

Paul Van Riper is a military expert that served in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. He is remembered for being a very aggressive and a very smart commander of Mike Company. Mike Company was stationed in a hilly rice-paddy region of South Vietnam. Riper’s mission was to prevent North Vietnam from firing rockets into Danang. The missile attacks were occurring once or twice a week prior to him arriving. Only one attack occurred in the three months that he was stationed there. In the year 2000, Riper was asked by the Pentagon to play as the rogue commander in the great American war game known as the Millennium Challenge. The challenge was to test a new theory in how real-life warfare should be strategized. The story behind the simulation is that a rogue military commander broke off from the government that he worked for and then threatened to take the entire Persian Gulf to war. The Pentagon thought Riper would be perfect to use because it would really give the theory a hard test since Riper was so good at coming up with good strategizes for the military. The American’s would play as Blue team and Riper with his crew would play as Red team.

The game was staged to allow Blue team an advantage. They were given more troops, valuable information about Red team like where its vulnerabilities were, and good computer calculations as to what Red team could do; at least that’s what they thought. Blue team disabled Red team’s main communications. Blue team made the assumption that Red team would have to go to using satellites and cell phones for communications, which could easily be monitored. They were wrong. Riper was smarter than that. He decided to use couriers on motorcycles for their main communication. He then used lighting systems to launch planes so that Blue team would not know. Riper’s next move was to send a fleet of small boats to find the position of all of Blue team’s ships. Red team picked the best targets and did the calculations as to how many cruise missiles it would take to sink each of those ships. Blue team was so confused as to what Red team was doing because this was so unexpected. While Blue team was in a state of confusion, Red team launched their surprise attack of cruise missiles and sank 16 of Blue team’s ships. Blue team suffered a catastrophic loss. How could have this happened (Gladwell, Blink 99–111)?

This story of Paul Van Riper gives an image of that theory. Riper was dealt a hand full of facts that would bring him down below the competition. Riper looked at the disadvantages in a different way though. He figured out that having their communications knocked out was actually an advantage instead of a disadvantage because they were able to beat Blue team’s expectations and win the game.

Michael Phelps was in a similar situation that Paul Van Riper encountered. Phelps attended school in the Towson school district. Towson High School didn’t have a swimming pool so Phelps didn’t swim there. Normally that would be considered a big disadvantage but it turned into an advantage because Phelps was able to go swim for the North Baltimore Aquatic Club instead. There, he met the man who would turn out to be his life-long coach, Bob Bowman (“Michael Phelps: Biography” 2012). Phelps had the great opportunity of meeting his big time coach at such a young age. “Great Opportunities” is one of Malcolm Gladwell’s ideas of success (Outliers 55). Once Phelps began swimming there, Bowman saw the potential in Phelps as a swimmer almost immediately (“Michael Phelps: Biography” 2012).

Gladwell thought of the idea that we as humans have a conscious mind and an unconscious mind. The conscious mind lets us realize what we actually do while the unconscious mind is like our instincts. When the unconscious mind makes a decision, our bodies don’t actually realize the decision that we just made. The unconscious mind also works a lot faster than our conscious minds and it is just as accurate too. That is where Gladwell’s first Blink theory comes from (Blink 11–14). Bob Bowman put this theory into play by know that Phelps would be a good swimmer the second he looked at him. That instinct was right because of Phelps’ great success.

Even though Phelps is an all-time Olympian swimmer, he was still a regular kid in his young age. He played for Towson’s golf team in high school and he also considered playing football at the time (“Michael Phelps: Biography” 2012). All well-known people lived an ordinary life at one point in time. They just got some lucky break or some opportunity which boosted them up and out of the ordinary life. Phelps had that same thing happen to him when he decided to start swimming for the North Baltimore Aquatic Club.

Phelps comes from a fairly athletic family. Michael’s father Fred was a good athlete and passed the athletics down to his three kids. All three of Fred’s kids participated in swimming. Hilary was the oldest and showed that she had potential in swimming until she decided to give up on it. Whitney was the middle child and she went further than Hilary in swimming. At the age of 15, Whitney tried out for the 1996 US Olympic team. Unfortunately, she did not qualify for the team and her swimming career was cut short by some herniated disks. Michael was the youngest child in the family and was Fred and Debbie’s third child. Michael obviously became the successful swimmer in the family. Can the saying “Third times a charm,” be applied to Michael here? The saying can slightly be applied since Michael was the third child to go out for swimming. While Hilary and Whitney swam, Michael watched and learned from them before he even hit the pool (“Michael Phelps: Biography.” 2012). Michael was better prepared for swimming than both of his sisters because he started to experience swimming at a younger age then both of them. Malcolm explained this as another one of his theories which he called “Family Legacies” (Outliers 151–158).

Michael Phelps has swam a lot in his lifetime. It can easily be said that Malcolm Gladwell’s theory of 10,000 hours fits with Phelps. He has probably hit his 10,000 hour mark at least two times over again.

“Much of what we are doing when we develop expertise involves learning to recognize patterns” (Callahan 68). Phelps constantly tweaked his stroke while swimming to get the perfect swim. He and his coach could see the patterns of what was good and what was bad. They perfected Phelps’ stroke through time.

Phelps is currently 29 years old and he started swimming when he was seven years old. Do the math, and that is 22 years of swimming. Malcolm says that if you work consistently in your profession, it will take about ten years for you to reach the 10,000 hour mark (Outliers 41). For the amount of years that Phelps has swam, it can be said that he reached the mark more than twice.

Phelps is standing up on the block ready to swim. He swings his arms back and forth. The whistle blows and then the referee says, “Take Your Mark!” Phelps steadies himself up on the block as he gets into position to jump. The buzzer goes off and all eight swimmers leap into the water. Phelps’ dive into the water is so smooth and his under water is superb. When he surfaces, his arms fly over his head and then back down into the water. His arms are like spinning windmills in the water propelling him forward at crazy speed. He touches the wall and presses off with great power. His under water again is amazing and powerful. He surfaces and starts his butterfly stroke again. Somebody in the crowd then starts whistling to the rhythm of Phelps bringing his head above the water and then putting it back down again. When he comes into the last wall, he is almost a full body length ahead of the second place swimmer and he takes the 1st place finish with it (Jeff Cooper 2013).

This story was of Michael Phelps swimming the 50 yard Butterfly when he was eleven years old in 1996. Why does this story matter? It matters because it shows that Phelps worked his butt off in swimming. The opportunities that he got and the disadvantages which were actually advantages weren’t the only part of Phelps’ successful swimming career. He needed the 10,000 hours in order to succeed. This also applies to everybody else in the world. If you have some great opportunity come along in your life, you need to put forth the effort in order to become successful. Most of the time though, you need the great opportunity in order to be successful. Neither one by themselves will make a successful person. Only when the effort is there, and the opportunity is set forth will one become successful and live a good life. This isn’t saying that some people are left without opportunities. All people are given an opportunity of some sort. How they choose to use it and if they choose to acknowledge it though is what determines if a person will become successful or not. The people that don’t put forth the effort don’t become successful in life. You may not see your opportunities at first, but once you do make the right decision and put forth your full effort in order to become a successful person.

Works Cited

Callahan, Lisa. “Blink or Think?” T+D 64. (2010): 68–69. Print.

“Michael Phelps: Biography.” JockBio.com. Black Book Partners, 2012. Web. 4 May 2015.

Jacklondon5111. “Michael Phelps 8th Gold 2008 Beijing Olympics Swimming Men’s 4 x 100m Medley Relay.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 11 December 2012. Web. 13 May 2015.

Jeff Cooper. “Young Michael Phelps 50 Butterfly — 11 Years Old — 1997.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 1 January 2013. Web. 13 May 2015.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Print.

— -. Blink. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005. Print.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jonathan Jarl, a freshman from Bethel University, seeks an internship for State Fund Mutual as an actuary. Jarl likes competative swimming, Brisk lemonade, and Ultimate Frisbee.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED

Research can be difficult. It can be easy. The way that you go about finding it determines how easy or difficult it is.

10,000 hours really does mark the the professional status.

The Gladwell formula for writing papers is very useful.

Dropping the reader in a moment is very powerful.

Original writing leads to great papers.

I am able to create well written papers. If I set my mind to what I’m writing about and interact with it, it will turn out quite well.

The stories I write actually make sense and they can be pretty good.

I can apply material that I learned in College Writing in reality.

Naming the dog makes a story much more powerful.

Ending a paper where you started leads to a great finish.

Spreading out the work load allows your work to be so much better. If you try to write a paper the night before its due, I guarantee you that it won’t be as well written.

Having other eyes look at your paper rather than just yours, makes editing so much easier.

Success in life requires more than just a lot of hard work. It requires opportunities and advantages that are given to you. You just have to be ready to take those opportunities once they show their faces.

Keeping the reader interested is another key feature to writing a good paper.

Scott Winter told us to get out our journals because we were going to write about something fun that we did over our Easter break. I have always been known to write very poorly, so I was expecting my story to be really crappy. I don’t know what it was, but something caused me to start writing right off the bat. Normally I have to sit and think about what I’m going to write. After we were done writing, I looked back and read what I had just written. I impressed myself with the short story that I wrote, and at that moment, I learned that even I can write a good story.