Swimmer Moses Hoping to Part Olympic Waters

Ed Moses burned out on swimming. Practice took up too much time and he wasn’t having fun.

So he quit--at age 10.

Six years later, when he realized his 6 handicap wasn’t going to get him a college golf scholarship, Moses dived back into the pool and started taking the sport seriously during his senior year in high school. That was 1997.

Now--much to the disbelief of coaches and parents, not to mention teammates who have trained virtually nonstop for thousands of hours since they were toddlers--Moses is a favorite to win a gold medal at the Sydney Olympics.

“It really has been remarkable,” said Pete Morgan, Moses’ coach at the Curl-Burke swim club. “From not even on the map at all, not even registered in U.S. swimming, in October 1997, to No. 1 in the world, it really is quick.”

Moses, 19, has been the buzz of the swimming world since he swam the fifth-fastest 100-meter breaststroke ever to win the gold medal at last year’s Pan Am Games, where his mother held up a sign proclaiming: “Part the Water, Moses.” Most overnight sensations quietly have been paying their dues for years, but not Moses, who realizes he was somewhat lucky to rediscover his natural talent just in time.

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I think it started out with a little bit of talent for swimming,” said Moses, who is expected to qualify for both the 100-meter and 200-meter breaststroke at the Olympic trials in August. “I’m not too bulky of a guy, but I have enough strength to get through the water.”

His immediate success wasn’t easy for some to fathom. Parents started wondering if years of sacrifice were really necessary if a natural can just come along and sweep everyone else aside. There was some jealousy among Moses’ teammates as the newfound prodigy rose to 16th in the world in the 100-meter breaststroke after just 10 months of training.

“When a guy who had paid his dues sees a guy he’s never heard of standing next to him on a podium--a no-name--there’s going to be some guys scratching their heads,” Morgan said.

The jealousy faded, largely because of Moses himself. Though fiercely competitive in the pool, he is characterized by friends as polite, unassuming and far from arrogant.

“Ed’s a team leader,” said Bill Smythe, assistant coach at the University of Virginia, where Moses competed as a freshman and sophomore before giving up his eligibility this spring. “He knows the difference between confidence and cockiness.”

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Moses is also diligent, watching videotapes of himself and former Curl-Burke swimmer Mike Barrowman, the 200-meter breaststroke gold medalist at Barcelona in 1992. Moses wants to hone a smooth, efficient stroke that makes other competitive swimmers look unpolished.

“Unfortunately, the message is not really: Those of you who are hacking around a golf course, why don’t you just hop in the pool and see if you can be world-ranked in two years,” Morgan said. “Yeah, he was a golfer, but the reality is that here is that wonderful combination of skills at the world-class level combined with the wonderful willingness to take those skills to world-class training levels.

“Who knows? Out of all those millions of stories of the 50-somethings, men and women saying, ‘I wish I’d done this,’ maybe the difference in a few of those stories was they didn’t have the mentor that grabbed them. It’s good fortune, as much as anything. Ed’s catalyst happened to be me, lucky for me.”

Morgan didn’t realize how lucky, initially.

He first saw Moses in 1997 in a summer league in which Moses was swimming for the fun of it.

“It’s not like anything stood out,” Morgan said. “He swam OK times.”

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After the high school golf season, Moses started training with Morgan full time. Moses didn’t make much of an impression until his first race, when he won a 100-yard breaststroke race in Richmond despite nearly running out of gas at the end.

From then on, it was a matter of improving Moses’ conditioning and somehow getting him to bottle up the adrenaline and drive he showed in the race and repeat it daily in practice. Before long, he was posting times that had Virginia and other colleges calling.

Smythe remembers attending the 1998 summer nationals with head coach Mark Bernardino after Moses had committed to Virginia. They watched their new swimmer finish third.

“He got out of the water and walked straight over to Mark after the race, apologizing to Mark with tears in his eyes,” Smythe said. “When he did that, we knew we had something special. He thought he’d let us down.”

Moses won his share of races with the Cavaliers before capturing his Pan Am Games gold. He’s taking a year off from school for the Olympics, but hopes Sydney is only just the beginning. Because he got his burnout out of the way at an early age, Moses should have no trouble staying on top through Athens in 2004.

“He is so new and so fresh,” Morgan said. “He still is playing catch-up. That’s what makes him so dangerous. There really is no end to his progress in sight right now.”