2008 Getty Images

Ian Crocker at the 2008 Beijing Olympics

01/05/10

Ian Crocker had a rough holiday season. Too ill to go home to Maine. Pushing through a revamping of his professional life. But he still has so much going for him, with his illustrious swim career and a degree from the University of Texas. He talks candidly about his battle with depression, and how he hopes to find his very own and unique place in this world in this week’s 20 Question Tuesday.

1) So I heard that the Ian Crocker Swim School is going a different direction now?
Ian: We are working on dissolving the company. There is no problem with (one of his business partners) Neil Walker and me at all, it had to do with something else. I still want to keep up with the next generation of swimmers, but I’m not sure what form that will take next.

2) You don’t sound well, you okay?
Ian: I am better now. Whatever I had started off with the flu and moved through me and it ended up with me having pneumonia, and I had to have an X-ray of my lungs. It’s better now.

3) What did you think of World Championships in Rome watching as a fan now?
Ian: I am happy for Eric Shanteau. I was hoping for more from Garrett Weber-Gale, a close friend, but he got a fire lit under him after the summer that is going to motivate him. Talking to him this fall, he is refreshed and over the letdown you get after the Olympics.

4) How are you doing fighting depression – as someone who also deals with it, I really admire how open you have been about it – I’m sure recent events have made it tough, correct?
Ian: I feel like … the last year and a half, my life has taken on so many changes that I have to make sure I am dealing with it (depression), and staying on top of it rather than it getting on top of me. I just need to be aware of it and make sure I am taking time to do the things I need to do for myself. Focusing on swimming and creating fitness and generating revenue was something I needed and need to do, and enjoyed. But there’s this other piece to me and my personality and I need to make sure I’m creating and expressing what’s in my heart and mind, because otherwise, I feel like I am neglecting a major part of myself.

5) You and Brendan Hansen certainly played a key role in Michael Phelps’ historic run in Beijing, but how was it in your individual event, and how did you deal with that?
Ian: It was a challenge; it was really a hard meet for both Brendan and myself. I feel like you give everything you’ve got to give, but… sometimes it is there, sometimes it is not. The strange thing about swimming, and swimming at that level, is you don’t know what makes up the best swims of your life. You get behind the block after you do your best preparation, then you try to do exactly what you need to do, and sometimes it is there but other times it is not. That’s the thing about swimming, is it just isn’t an exact science – there’s no perfect formula. I think both Brendan and myself gave what we had to give – it just didn’t come back the way we would have liked. That’s the challenge of swimming. I also realized there is no way to sever your relationship from the sport and feel satisfied. I’ve been thinking about this over the last year and half maybe longer: The swimmers who end their career on the highest note – go to Olympic Games, win a bunch of medals and retire after that – get that feeling later on of, “What is left in the tank, can I do more?” They don’t know, even envisioning that being their last meet ahead of time, if they can or should go on. The opposite side of that is making the Games and not having the results you want. If you leave after that you have a bitter taste in your mouth, and you want to figure out why things went that way. And you have to learn to cope and deal with that. I don’t know if that makes sense, but leaving the competitive aspect of it…no one gets out unscathed.

6) Is it really like that, whether it’s a great, or below-par performance – is it that hard for it to end on terms one is satisfied with?
Ian: It can be, yes. I think that is the challenge of it: You have a really successful swim, or a really successful meet that you are really happy about, but the day after that meet you are already planning how to make it better. There’s no moment where you get to embrace what happened. So you are constantly moving forward – like a shark , if you aren’t moving forward, you are dying. You don’t get to internalize what you’ve done. Once you are done swimming, it can be like a New Orleans funeral – a celebration, but bittersweet at the same time. After I got back from Beijing it felt like I had to celebrate what I had done over the last 10 years, 20 years of my life and realize what I was able to accomplish. But there is no way to get your head around it – it’s a really difficult thing. You are in a pattern of “What’s next, what’s next?” Then, you retire, and you really are like, “What is next?”

 7) Are you still asking yourself “what is next”?
Ian: Absolutely. I don’t know exactly what tomorrow or the next day is going to bring. I have no idea what shape my life is going to take and be like. In some ways that is stressful, but in some ways it is liberating, because it is such a blank slate. But for someone who has had structure such as this in his life since I was 8 years old - structure that keeps you on your toes – the last year and a half has been tough. But I know that all that I have learned in that recent time, I could not have learned any other way; it was a crash course in business, life and interpersonal relationship. It’s been a series of huge lessons that have been invaluable – I could not put a price tag on it. But it’s also been rough.

8) What has been rough in particular?
Ian: To start up an entity, have success, and then walk away from it because things were not being done the way I wanted them to be done. I wasn’t prepared to live my life that way, so I pulled my life away from it. It’s hard to start from scratch again. If I knew a year and a half ago what I know now, it would be a whole lot different conversation that we’re having right now. But you have to learn those lessons. You have to fall down sometimes.

9) You are such a thinker – have you thought about graduate school?
Ian: I’m just…I was never built for the classroom. Potentially, it would be different than it was as an undergraduate, but I don’t know.

10) What did you major in at the University of Texas?
Ian: Sociology. It was really the only thing I found that made me want to go to class, that made me want to read and kept me interested. It was about learning about people, and learning about yourself – because in the end what can be applied to the macro can be applied to the micro.

11) Are you still writing poetry and expressing yourself that way?
Ian: I think poetry is an important part of my creative side. I am at a point…I’m just at a place now where I am realizing my depression gets worse when I ignore that (creative) side of myself, when I go toward the societal things you are “supposed” to do – that’s the struggle I have been in. Society says you graduate high school, go to college, graduate from college in four or five years, get a job or go to grad school, get a job have a family, raise kids. That is a satisfying way of life for most of society. But for me it’s about feeding this part of myself that does not follow a set pattern. Every day for me is a little bit different. I have to be in tune with which way the wind is blowing. I can’t follow always what I am supposed to do or what society expects. Sometimes you have to listen to what your heart is telling you, and that’s something I’ve been neglecting a little bit.

12) Is it that focus you are after – or that kind of focus that you need to avoid to instead move forward creatively, and better manage the depression?
Ian: During my swimming career, it was, “If this is your goal, this is what you have to do to get there.” People were there to help with that. My personality – my whole being – is a bit different than that. It ebbs and flows. I’m not necessarily a nonconformist, but my personality and how I live doesn’t necessarily conform to what society dictates. People assume what is good for them is good for everybody, and that’s just not how it is for me.

13) Will you stay involved with swimming?
Ian: I hope so. Swimming has always been a major part of my life; I want to give back to it and keep it part of my life. The struggle is that it doesn’t express the creative side of myself.

14) Are you swimming now?
Ian: I feel…I don’t feel like I have the energy or desire to do what I had to do in order to be at that level again. If I had to spend as much time in the pool as I had to over the 18 years that I swam … I don’t think that’s a piece of me that I can give any more. I’m excited to watch it and I’m excited for my friends. Swimming is a sport that if you don’t put in the time, you don’t get it back – you don’t get the results. I don’t think that level of energy is something I have. The whole Fall (of 2009) has been so busy with working with the kids and the swim school and everything, I haven’t had a lot of chances to work out. I’m going to be doing a cross-fit thing starting tomorrow to just start doing something. Thankfully my weight is down; the heaviest I got was 211. My racing weight was 190, but after being sick the last few weeks, my weight is 185 – so at least (laughs) my weight is down. But I have to get some muscle back.

15) We’ve talked about your amazing creative side – we have talked through the years about restoring cars, what’s your dream car to restore?
Ian: I am working on a 1965 Ford  F-100 right now. My buddy Jimmy and I bought it in August, and it’s in rough shape and we have a lot of work to do on it. Working on that is nice. I’m just going out to the garage, doing body work, peeling the paint off it, and getting things ready for paint. I love old trucks. I have a thing for old trucks. It’s simple and bare bones. There’s something about a pick-up truck that gets better with age. Cars you can get tired of, but with a pickup up you get attached to it. I love this old Ford. It doesn’t have to be perfect – not show quality or anything. I just want a good ol’ truck that runs.

16) Garrett Weber-Gale is quite the chef, do you guys cook together at all?
Ian: He and I have really been wanting to get together and cook. I want to do that. But to be honest, getting back to what we talked about earlier, when you are not feeding that creative part of yourself, you kind of lose the wind in your sails to do that kind of thing – it’s been hard to get out in the kitchen and experiment too much the past year. I am getting back to it now.

17) How great was it to have Brendan Hansen and Aaron Peirsol to go through 2008 with though?
Ian: You know, I remember having a conversation with Brendan in Beijing. We always have such a good time off on these trips, spending time together, watching movies just going to explore…yet when we get back home, it’s hard to nail down a time to get together. It’s been really hard to connect with him over the past year. Either he’s out of town or I am out of town. I have not gotten to see him that much. It kind of makes me sad. But I realize and respect he has his stuff going on and I do too. We don’t have same meeting times we had twice a day during our swim careers. Aaron – I love Aaron – but we never spent a lot of time outside of the pool. We have some similarities and interests, but we have different personalities. I see him when I go up to the pool. It’s weird because he’s still doing that whole thing, at the pool day in and day out – I don’t know how he’s doing it! I know he’s a few years younger, maybe he still has some fire left in him for it – but he is just incredible at doing all that so well.

18) Do you ever think about returning to Maine for good, or do you like Austin still?
Ian: I really love Austin. I feel like I get energy from Austin. I don’t feel I could move north. In Austin, it’s getting dark just past 6 p.m., and that’s too early (laughs) for me to have it getting dark! But it’s way worse up north; back home at 4:30 it gets dark. I need as much sunlight as I can get. I was intending to go to Maine for Christmas but because I got sick I decided not to go up there. In September, I did go to the University of Maine for a swim clinic and a kids triathlon which were just great. It was good to see my folks and I love it up there. I miss the food and the slower pace. But this time of year, it’s hard up there, so cold and gray.

19) How cool was it to be part of history in Beijing?
Ian: I mean, it’s like I wish I could have had a more major role. but to be there and be a part of it… another big piece for myself is I felt so terrible after Melbourne (getting relay disqualified at 2007 Worlds during Phelps’ “test run” for Beijing) – that  was one of the hardest things I had to go through. We’ve all disqualified individually, and I know people make mistakes. But to make a mistake that affects other people was one of the hardest things I had to go through. So in Beijing, to be able to, at least in some way, make it right – at least for myself – was important, to have that same role and not screw it up. It was nice to go through the same scenario and get it right. I could move on and be maybe a small part of the history that Michael wrote in Beijing, but Michael did not need my help by any means. Michael could have swum the prelim and finals leg in the 400 medley relay if he needed to. But it was nice to be there, and to maybe make it (2007) right in some small way.

20) Hey, I know a lot of fans and swim friends care a lot about you – are you going to be all right?
Ian: That’s the one thing about me: I will not quit. I just don’t quit. At this point, I don’t know exactly what “moving forward” means, especially at this point in the road. But there’s no standing still. I will keep moving forward.