Keith Strudler: The Return Of Michael Phelps

Welcome back Michael Phelps. After a year or two on dry land, it seems you’ve reentered your natural habitat.

An amphibian at heart, Phelps has announced his intentions to swim competitively again, defying his retirement from the sport after the 2012 Olympics. He’ll compete again next week in Arizona, after spending the past several months swimming his way back into shape. He’s not yet near his swimming apex of the 2008 Olympics, or even the 2012 Games, but according to his coach Bob Bowman he’s fit enough not to embarrass himself. We’ll know a little more after his performance in the 50 free and 100 free and fly events next week. But given it’s Phelps, and that he’s been in the pool for the better part of six months already, I’m guessing he’ll fare just fine, if not yet up to his Herculean standards.

The general assumption is that Phelps’ comeback is predicated on a return to the Olympic Games in 2016 to add to his record 22 medals. He’d be 31 in Rio, which may be old by general Olympic swimming precedent, but falls nowhere near advanced age of Dara Torres in her last Olympic effort. Phelps must feel far older than that, since he entered the spotlight in his teens and seemed to be immersed in water ever since. Still, compared to the rest of the human populace, his career is far shorter than most, like say the guy who spent 50 years in the coal mine. But Olympic years are like dog years – they count for way more than they are.

It is not at all difficult to understand why Phelps would want to return to Olympic swimming. It’s impossible to imagine he’d be as good at anything else. And even if he was, he wouldn’t get the same public adoration for being, say, the best HR manager in the world. If you’re really good at something, and it gets you fame and fortune, and you like it, why in the world would you stop doing it?

Perhaps in some way, this is a primary difference between the sports workplace and pretty much everywhere else. Most people see work as an imperative, a means of paying the rent and passing the time. As we like to say, that’s why they call it a job. You come, you go, and hope to earn a decent living along the way. And when, say, a better job comes along, you take it. In fact, doing anything less seems almost obscene, or unambitious at the least.

Compare that the job of the star athlete, the extent to which Olympic swimmer can be categorized as such. There is no true hiring committee. You just swim and swim and hope your performance meets your aspiration. And if you’re remarkably gifted and talented, you may have the opportunity to put all of your concerted efforts towards a single day that that will largely determine your entire fiscal and emotional future. Where some hundredth of a second determines whether the past 10 or so years of your life have been a complete success or failure. And along the way, you’ve probably had to hold another job, say at Home Depot, so you could afford to feed yourself.

And then, after it’s all done, you have to decide whether to keep on doing it or change your life in ways unimaginable. Trade a swim suit for jacket and tie. It’s like a teacher taking a job as zoo keeper. And your decision will largely be critiqued on fairly arbitrary and at times personal qualifiers. Like that you can’t walk away, or you’re a media hog, or you don’t want to give the next group a chance, like anyone would say that to a corporate vice president enjoying an executive salary for a couple extra years. That’s the work cycle of the professional Olympic athlete. Where the line between employed and retired is opaque at best. Michael Phelps can’t really retire because he was never really hired. And swimmer isn’t just what he does, it’s, for better or worse, what he is.

So, Michael Phelps, welcome back. Even though, to be honest, you never really left. 

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