Sidelines
BRETT PHILLIPS is alive. Phillips gets back
in the swimIt's 4:15 in the morning and it's time for crunches. Phillips is up, awake. Going. Lifting. Soon he's at the University of Hawaii and in the pool. "Freebird" is floating through his mind, and the old song finds its way into every stroke. Phillips keeps going. Three thousand yards. Four thousand. Swimming in a strong, steady rhythm. He feels strong. He feels good. It's a feeling he hasn't felt in a long, long time.
Brett Phillips is alive.
HE FORGOT. It's easy to forget. He had a life to live. Kids to raise. A house to fix. Things to do. Swimming? No. He'd swum enough for a lifetime already. High school state crowns at Kailua. A state record. Roughwater championships. Big 10 titles. College MVP at Wisconsin.
"By the time I left after college it was like I couldn't get far enough away from a pool," Phillips said.
He was burned out. Fried. So he walked away. He sailed boats. He drank beer. He forgot. He lived his life half frozen in carbonite, Han Solo style.
For 20 years, it piled up on him just a little more, bit by bit by bit.
"A year ago I was on my way to a heart attack," he said.
He'd tried to get out a few times. You know the routine. Exercise for a while. Quit. Exercise for a while. Quit. He started swimming in the North Shore series, then hurt his wrist and had to stop. His kids started swimming, so he was with them in the mornings, but after four or five months it went on the shelf. He just didn't have it anymore. It wasn't that important. It didn't mean a thing.It happens. He forgot.
HIS WIFE AND HER FRIEND, the neighbor, were starting a program. They were going to get healthy. It was a famous, national plan -- the guy with the book, folding his arms, with the black T-shirt. You've seen it. There were success stories and plans and drinks and exercises. They were making a commitment. So Phillips watched, standing on the sidelines for about six months. And then finally he caved and they roped him into it as well.
"Of course the first thing I did was change everything," he said.
But it stuck. And he stuck. He started feeling better, doing better. He swam, because that was what he knew. He swam in the afternoon at the Kailua pool. Then he wanted to swim some more, so he got up early and went to UH, too. He decided to do dry land work. With a job, with life, there was no time. "So I just started getting up early to do that."
He was awakening.
Al Minn had been his coach when Phillips was a small kid, and now Minn was working with him again. Pushing him. Prodding him. Reminding him of his dreams.
"That's one of the things that I thank Mr. Minn about," Phillips said. "Because he helped me re-find that. Because it was ... you know, it's amazing. It's so much fun."
IT WAS HARD to get in swims. The age group open meets were pretty much pau after the kids -- there were four-hour time limits -- and here was "this big, hairy white guy" who wanted to jump in, too. But it worked out. And he got a few times on the clock, on paper. And for as old as he was, for as little training as he was able to do, they blew him away. "So it was like, OK," he said. "This is going to work."
He was in his 40s. And it was all coming back to him.
An old friend told him that the age group distance records were sitting there, ripe for Phillips to break them. He looked at his times. He looked at the Internet. The wheels started turning. He was tickled. He was awake. He was alive.
"I'm training to break world records," he said.
And he loves it. Oh, how he loves it so.
For 20 years, he'd forgotten just how wonderful it was.
IT'S EVEN BETTER NOW. So much better. "My freshman year at Christmas break in the 1,000 I was No. 1 in the country," Phillips said. "But then I got sick. I never put it all together at a national championship."
Now he can. Now he knows. This is a second chance. It's unfinished business.
He searches the Internet for times and rivals, relishing the thought of introducing himself into the fray with a splash. He's pushing himself as hard as his 43-year-old body can go. It gets him up at 4:15 in the morning. It keeps his brain buzzing at night.
He's shooting for the Master's Nationals on Aug. 16-19 in Seattle. In December, he thinks he has a chance to go for the 800 and 400 freestyle world records. He'll tweak his training now, become even more intense.
Phillips has already claimed the American 40-44-year-old records in the 800-meter freestyle (short course yards) and 1,000 freestyle. "Still died like a rat," he said. "Felt like (hell). Goggles came off, all that stuff. But still crawled home, fast."
Phillips grinned, the proud, cocky grin of an athlete. He loves pushing himself through the pain. Such sweet suffering for a guy who waited half a lifetime to feel it again. And didn't even know it.
"There's nothing like coming up along somebody and then just blowing their doors off," he said.
He's almost bursting. He had almost forgotten what that felt like. But now he knows it again.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com