Finding Ultra (7 page)

My only thought?
Get me more. Now
. And before you could blink, to the delight of the Michigan swimmers, I'd drunk the better part of a six-pack, with plenty more lined up. And the more I drank, the better I felt. For the first time in my life, I experienced what I thought it must feel like to be
normal
—to walk into a group of people and just start a spontaneous conversation, to look someone in the eye and crack a joke, to flirt with a girl, laugh, and just plain feel good about myself. I found myself engaging—funny even, holding court. Truly, I'd found my answer. Could it really be this easy?

Early data indicated that yes, it really was that simple. Within an hour, Bruce Kimball had become my best friend. We chugged more beers together, and I watched in awe as this rare athletic specimen performed what to this day is the greatest party trick I've ever seen. With a full cup of beer firmly in one hand, from a still position he launched himself several feet in the air before tucking his knees and jerking his head back, completing a perfect standing backflip, nailing his landing square on his planted feet with nary a wobble. The kicker? Not one drop of beer spilled from the full cup he held. Whatever this guy had, I wanted it.

But Bruce's future wouldn't become the brightly lit success story I then imagined. Three years later, and just two weeks before the 1988 U.S. Olympic Diving Trials, he would plow his car into a crowd of teenagers at close to ninety miles per hour, killing two boys and injuring four. Drunk at the time, he was sentenced to seventeen years in prison and ultimately served five.

Of course, I couldn't foresee this future, or how my own life would later devolve because of the seeds planted that night. No, that night my horizon was limited to only my quickly blurring vision and the growing ecstasy I felt. I was deliriously happy not just because I'd at last blended into a group of strangers and had
discovered I could be charming with girls, but because I'd found a remedy for everything that ailed me. Only one thought looped through my mind:
When can I do this again?

I returned home to Bethesda thinking only about when I could take my next recruiting trip. And over the next several months I repeated my adventures up and down the Eastern Seaboard. I hobnobbed at Princeton, touring the famous eating clubs and sipping vodka tonics with the academic elite. After that, I journeyed to Providence, where I hit the best house parties Brown had to offer, eating clams and oysters over countless beers. Attending classes, learning about what each school had to offer, and evaluating the swimming programs all took a backseat to rooting out a good time.

Then it was on to Harvard—for obvious reasons my top choice.
The dream school
. Up in Cambridge for Harvard-Yale weekend, I kicked things off playing tailgate touch football with the Harvard swimmers. Swilling beers from a keg seemed to work miracles on my hand-eye coordination deficit. With my head buzzing, we headed over to the Harvard-Yale football game, where I kept warm by tasting my first bourbon, elegantly poured from a monogrammed silver flask. At halftime I left Harvard Stadium with swimmers Dave Berkoff and Jeff Peltier and snuck into nearby Blodgett Pool, Harvard's top-notch natatorium. The facility was utterly empty save for the three of us and a twelve-pack. We changed into our Speedos, climbed atop the ten-meter diving platform, and took turns chugging beers before launching our drunken bodies off the high ledge in an impromptu belly-flop contest. Before long, we were joined by the rest of the swim team and the other visiting recruits, who rolled a shopping cart containing a freshly tapped keg onto the pool deck for a game of “beer polo.” With the natatorium all to ourselves,
for the next two hours we played a drinking-game version of water polo that was pure hilarity.

Now completely drunk, I had to shower, dress, and head over to a local restaurant to meet with Coach Joe Bernal. I did my best to appear sober, but I stumbled through my dinner “meeting,” slurring my speech and embarrassing myself by repeating my questions, talking nonstop and fighting the urge to nod off. My memory of the encounter is vague at best, but I knew well enough that I'd blown it. So much for attending Harvard. Clearly Coach Bernal could tell I was hammered. I was terribly disappointed in myself for behaving this way. I'd worked so hard, come so far. How could I have jeopardized the opportunity of a lifetime by acting in such a manner? It wasn't me. Yet it
was
. I'd hit the first speed bump in my drinking career.

Before departing Cambridge, I made sure Coach Bernal knew where I stood, with all the humility I could muster,

“First off, I want to apologize for the other night. It was inexcusable,” I said, trying to maintain eye contact.

“Apologize for what?” he responded, giving me a blank look.

Had I dodged a bullet? Or did he just not care? I decided to let sleeping dogs lie and leave it alone. “I just want to make sure you know how much I want to go to Harvard. If I get in, I'm definitely coming. Definitely.”

“Great, Rich. That's what I like to hear. At this point, it's up to the admissions folks. But we'd love to have you. I'll be in touch.”

When the dust settled, I'd been accepted to every single college I applied to: Princeton, Amherst, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, Cal Berkeley, Brown, Stanford. And yes,
Harvard
. A perfect eight-for-eight. In fact, I was the only student at Landon
who'd been accepted to both Harvard and Princeton. The future was looking bright indeed. I was going to Harvard—just as I'd promised Tom Verdin, that swimmer I held in awe back when I was eight.

But I had a nagging feeling I just couldn't shake. It was late April 1985 when I delved into the newly arrived edition of my beloved
Swimming World
magazine. On the cover was a photo of the Stanford University team, grouped atop the podium at the 1985 NCAA Division I Championships and celebrating victory with broad smiles and proud fists raised high. I couldn't help but wonder,
What would it be like to swim with those guys out in mysterious California?
I couldn't shake the fantasy. Yet I couldn't imagine it a reality either. Sure, I was a decent swimmer. But make no mistake, I was far from
great
. So I shrugged it off as an impossible dream, turned the lights out, and tried to sleep. But I couldn't.

The next day I set aside my fear, doubt, and insecurity, picked up the phone, called information, and procured the number for the office of Stanford's notorious drill sergeant coach, Skip Kenney. Sweat beading on my brow, I nervously dialed. Then someone picked up on the other end.

“Stanford Swimming, Coach Knapp speaking.” Ted Knapp was Stanford's young assistant coach, a recent graduate himself and a fine swimmer in his day. I introduced myself, explained my interest in Stanford and the fact that I'd been accepted, and I relayed my swimming times.

“I'm not sure I'm fast enough. You guys have so much talent. So much depth. Just tell me if I'm wasting your time.” I prepared myself for the inevitable letdown.

“Not at all, Rich. When can you come out and visit?” I couldn't believe my ears.

I'll never forget the first time I laid eyes on Stanford's Palm Drive, an absolutely gorgeous boulevard lined with palm trees and
punctuated by the Spanish sandstone of the Stanford Quad at its terminus, with the Stanford Church gleaming in gold relief against the low sun setting radiantly behind the Palo Alto foothills in the background. I instantly knew I would not be attending Harvard.

“It's spring break, so campus is going to be pretty quiet,” Knapp had told me on the phone. “Most students are gone. But many of the swimmers are still around. I'll make sure you meet everyone.”

Good enough. For once, this trip wasn't about partying. This trip was about connecting with a place that felt like home before I'd even really seen it. Over the next few days, I toured the campus and spent casual time with students in flip-flops and tank tops, playing Frisbee and riding brightly colored motor scooters. I met my swimming heroes and visited the impressive athletic facilities, including DeGuerre Pool, Stanford's world-class outdoor swimming stadium—a far cry from the dreary indoor facilities I'd grown accustomed to.
I could swim outdoors under the sun every day!
I thought. Most important, I was made to feel welcome. The message I got from the coaches and swimmers was that even if I wasn't a world champion, or even a scholarship athlete for that matter, there was a place for me on this team. But what was most striking about Stanford in contrast to my Ivy League experiences was just how happy and positive the students appeared. Everyone I met enthusiastically shared with me how much they loved Stanford. Everywhere I looked, happy students milled about, studying outside in the sun, windsurfing in Lake Lagunita, and riding beach cruiser bikes.

It was everything that Landon wasn't. And I loved it.

When my parents picked me up at the airport, they could see it written all over my face. “Uh-oh,” my mom declared, fearing that her only son would head out to California, never to return again. Of course, they wanted me to go to Harvard. What parent wouldn't? But more important, they wanted me to be happy. So Stanford it
was. Later that week, gripping my Harvard acceptance letter in my hand—a heady diploma-like document on ivory parchment with my name written in bold calligraphy—I called Coach Bernal to tell him that I'd changed my mind.
Who am I to say no to Harvard? Are you nuts?
I thought to myself. But I stuck to my guns and broke the news. He wasn't happy. In fact, he never spoke to me again. I felt bad, yet I knew I'd made the right choice. I was following my heart.

That fall, my dad and I packed up the green Volvo station wagon and headed west for a cross-country drive en route to college. It was a wonderful father-son bonding experience. We took our time, visiting big-sky country and staying at Yellowstone Lodge, where my dad once spent a summer washing dishes when he was in college. We arrived at the “Farm,” a colloquialism for the pastoral Stanford campus, a couple days before registration to get familiar with this foreign environment. It would be a few weeks before swim team training would even begin, but I was determined to show up in shape. So while my future teammates acclimated to campus, I opted to join legendary swimmer Dave Bottom at the weight room each day and at Stanford Stadium for gut-busting sets of running stadium steps.

Registration Day arrived, and Dad took me to Wilbur Hall to check into my dormitory room.

“Name, please?” asked the teaching assistant charged with signing in the new freshman residents.

“Rich Roll,” I announced, my reply meeting with smiles and snickers from the dormitory staff.
Great
, I thought.
Am I being made fun of already?
It pushed all the insecurity buttons that Landon had so adroitly installed.

“Right this way,” a teaching assistant quipped with an unsettling smile as he walked my dad and me down a first-floor hallway to a
door adorned with a label announcing the names of its soon-to-be occupants: Rich Roll and Ken Rock. The staff gathered close, watching for my reaction. It took a moment, but the joke finally settled in. That's right, “Rock 'n' Roll” would be bunking together. The infamous pairing was vintage Stanford tongue-in-cheek, matched only by the four “Johns” who were purposely placed in one large room across the street in Banner Hall, Stanford's largest freshman dorm. Word spread fast, giving me instant campus notoriety that would shadow me for the next four years.

With Landon in my rearview mirror, I was determined to have a social life, and I didn't waste any time making my mark. My first night at Stanford I hit many a party, meeting as many people as I could, including all of the freshmen swimmers. And unlike at Landon, where football was everything, at Stanford swimmers occupied a special place in the social strata. For the first time, I had a chance of fitting in. And I wasn't about to blow it. Classes started, and so did swimming.

Despite my no-scholarship “walk-on” status, I resolved to make an impression on the team and the notoriously hard-nosed coach, Skip Kenney, an intimidating figurehead who ran his squad of aquatic warriors like General MacArthur commanded troops in the Pacific theater during World War II. So I did what I did best, going the extra mile at every opportunity. During workouts, I shared the butterfly lane with world record holder Pablo Morales and Anthony Mosse, an Olympian from New Zealand—the two fastest 200-meter-butterfly specialists in the entire world.
Was I dreaming?
Sure, they were much faster than I. But who better to learn from? Together in the diving well, we'd throw down gut-busting sets: twenty sets of twenty yards butterfly on the twenty-second interval, no breathing, followed immediately by twenty times twenty yards butterfly on the fifteen-second interval. At Curl, I had learned how
to jump into the shark tank and rise to a new level, and I was undaunted in my attempt to do it again. So what if I wasn't a scholarship athlete. I'd show them.

In addition, I was determined to assume a leadership role among my freshman teammates. Accordingly, I made a habit of dropping in on a different swimmer each night in their respective dorms, on my way home from studying at the library. I soon came to care deeply about my new friends and was hopelessly devoted to the team. And during each evening's dorm visit I'd also meet my teammates' dorm friends. In that way my social horizons began to expand exponentially. Within a month, I had more friends than I knew what to do with. And I was truly happy. I was attending one of the best universities in the world, swimming with the best athletes in the world, and fitting in socially for the first time in my life. Life wasn't just good—it was great.

A week before our first big dual meet against the Texas Longhorns, then the second-ranked team in the nation behind Stanford, I attended my first Stanford football game, an evening match in the warm October breeze. Hitting a variety of tailgate parties with my swimming buddies, I enjoyed a nice head buzz before heading into the stadium with fellow freshman John Hodge and senior John Moffet, a twelve-pack in our grips. At the time, Stanford had no restrictions on alcohol in the stadium. Students would haul kegs right up into the stands, and you could carry in as much booze to the bleachers as your heart desired.