Chapter 3 - Wide Eyed and Grinning

“Many precede and many will follow.  A young girl’s dream no longer hollow.

-Dixie Chicks “Wide Open Spaces”

Addie knew that the moving process wouldn’t be a fun one.  Something was going to go wrong.   Not everything would fit in the van, something would break, she would lose her dorm key within two seconds of getting it.  She woke up with one of her typical morning stress headaches after a relatively light night of sleep.  Slipping on a pair of grey track pants, her dark green Club Spartan swimming t shirt and Roxy slip ons before she took one final glance in her body length mirror next to her door.  

“Well, here goes nothing.” She sighed to herself, grabbing her pale blue suitcase that she had packed the night before full of not even half of her wardrobe.

The scent of fresh coffee hit her nose before she was even half way down the stairs and her headache began to melt away at the thought of it.  Her main addiction in life was most definitely caffeine.  She never smoked, never drank, never did any type of drug, but caffeine was the one thing that she would sell her left kidney for.

“Good morning sweetheart.” Her mom handed her the Niagara Falls mug as Addie walked into the kitchen. “All packed to go?”

Addie nodded as she poured herself coffee and went to grab the milk from off the counter before sitting down at the kitchen table.

She glanced at her mom, Rita over her coffee mug.  Her long auburn hair minus a few gray strands that she had given up on dyeing was pulled back in a loose bun with  a locust flower clip.  Her reading glasses had slipped down the bridge of her nose and were threatening to spill over before she inched them back up with her index finger.  Her mother wasn’t going to let moving day break into her morning routine of reading the Washington Post front to back.

“Hmm, you remember Jacques Chirac don’t you?  Well he’s been charged with embezzlement. Terrible.  Those political leader always feel like they need more power.”

“Mom nobody cares about Jacques Chirac.  What about the current French president?  How about his wife?  Carla Bruni, what I wouldn’t do to tap--”’

“Enough!”

Danny said through the screen door of the kitchen porch where he was reading the sports page of the newspaper before being cut off by Addie. He had already moved into his apartment earlier in the summer up at his school but had come home to aid in the moving process.  

Danny was going into his senior year at the University of Maryland, where he had gone on a full swimming scholarship.  During winter break of his freshman year, while driving from home to campus for practice he swerved on black ice and nearly totaled his newly bought Chevy truck into a telephone poll.  Even after months of hard rehabilitation for his broken leg and dislocated shoulder, he had still not been able to return to the proper physical shape to perform at such a high level of competition, let alone the right mental stability.  Unable to put his scholarship to good use in the pool, he lent his longtime swimming experience in the form of a volunteer assistant coach.  The team certainly missed him in the pool, as he was one of their faster distance swimmers, but the accident surely opened a new opportunity for him for which he was grateful.

“Why don’t you go help your father put the rest of Addie’s boxes in the van so that we can get on the road sooner rather than later, hmm?”

As Danny walked through the kitchen he ruffled Addie’s hair affectionately and threw the paper on the table.  The accident had brought the two siblings closer together and Addie in a way felt it was her sisterly duty to perform well at Towson.  Not to say that Danny was the overwhelming factor in her decision to be a part of the swim program, but it certainly helped.  A part of the decision was still rooted in the competitive nature that they had built during those many practices in the adjacent lanes.

The clunking and banging of boxes coincided with her father Dom coming up from the basement with their Great Dane/ German Shepherd mix, Santi in tow.  Dominic Rossi looked like as typical an Italian man as you could get without being a mob boss.  A large, gruff man with slicked back hair that was jet black but quickly graying, he was carrying a huge box that said shoes on it as Santi was dragging a lone Nike sneaker behind him.

As her father and Danny headed out to the van, Rita put the last of the front page down on the table and took the last sip of her coffee before turning to Addie.  Now that look was familiar.  One of those mother-daughter after-school special talks was coming.  Most likely something about don’t neglect your homework, always walk in twos and threes and don’t ever let your drink out of your sight at a party.  These talks had happened before and Addie had always listened to the talks but never really heard them.  She knew that Mom was just worrying, like she always does.

Instead of talking, Rita simply handed her a tri-fold letter with “Addie” scrawled in her mom’s perfect cursive on the front.  Mom smiled, moved her reading glasses to her forehead and left the room.

A letter? Well, this is new.  Addie thought.  On the bottom right hand corner, in small letters read: love, Mom.  Danny yelled to her from outside so Addie stuffed the letter in the side pocket of her  oversized Nine West tote bag and went out to help jam the remaining boxes and bags into the van.

Chapter Two - Drive

"Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there with open arms and open eyes."

- Incubus "Drive

During the car ride home, Addie weighed the options in her mind. The practice schedule for Penny’s team was time consuming and needed full focus and dedication. Doubles three days a week, a three hour practice on Saturdays full of pool time and drylands, then factor in meets every Saturday from the end of September to the end of February. That left time for homework and little else free time, let alone to be part of another sports team. She’d have to choose.


Her bedroom was not one that you would expect from a star athlete. There were no trophies on her dresser, no medals hung from racks, no ribbons littered on a shelf. Track jerseys and swimsuits were no where to be found, except for on the dozens of pictures which hung from black frames on the four painted walls. Addie and her best friend Megan in front of Lejeune Hall at the Naval Academy after the State Championships. Both of the girls were holding their Speedo leg suits over their head in victory poses, happy to be done with their club swimming careers. Another picture of Addie, her older brother Tommy and her parents, all four decked out in full Severna River paraphernalia after a meet her Junior year. Addie in the evergreen and white track jersey, with her dark brown hair hanging in her face and a small black brace around her left knee. The same left knee she had the ACL surgery on just five months earlier, nearly half the amount of recovery time usually needed.


Addie took both pictures down from their positions next to her bed and looked at both. The memories of both came flowing back into her consciousness and she felt the tears come to her eyes. She didn’t know how she would choose between the two sports, as they both brought something special and different to her life. You could say that running was her first love. Never all that great at anything that required outstanding hand-to-eye coordination, she always was the leader of the gym class in the warm up laps around the field. Add a soccer ball to her feet, she would stumble. Hand her a football, it would most likely connect with the receiver’s head. Tell her to run two miles, she would leave her classmates in her dust. Hurdles were a challenge at first, but once she got into the rhythm of them, she excelled at that as well. Running was her outlet, it helped her release stress and her thoughts. Going for a quick mile run before she began her homework throughout middle school allowed her to focus better on her reading or math problems.


Swimming was a different story. Her parents dipped her in the baby pool at the local YMCA when she was four and enrolled her in swim lessons when she was six. Tommy had taken to the water right away, he always eager to go to lessons and when he got older, team practice, but Addie was the complete opposite. She cried the first time her mom dropped her off with the swim instructor with her ratty towel and pink goggles in hand. She barely made it through her first swim race without drowning because she was choking on her sobs. Every summer, Addie and Tommy would join the other community kids on the swim team, sucking on lemons and candy canes between races and playing hide and seek when they should have been lining up for their heats. But swimming was never something that Addie considered a passion. When Tommy, joined the competitive year-round club swim team during his freshman year of high school, he became fast friends with Michael. Michael, who was a year older than Tommy, was considered the fastest boy in Maryland. Tall, lean and muscular, he was already being scouted by some of the best colleges in the nation as the top recruit and a potential Olympian. Addie became infatuated with him the minute Tommy had invited Michael over to play video games.


Yes, Addie joined the swim team in order to see Michael more. Is she proud of the fact that she got involved in something for such a shallow reason? No. Did Michael in a speedo make her quickly forget her guilt? Yes.


It turned out that once Addie dedicated more than just a few months in the summer to swimming, that she had some genuine natural talent. She dropped seconds nearly every time she raced in a meet in any stroke or distance, something that more seasoned swimmers were not accustomed to. After only six months, she had been moved up to the top group within the club which consisted of the most advanced swimmers, including her brother and Michael. The two siblings had never competed against each other and had for the most part gotten along throughout their childhood. Now, with thirteen year old Addie the quickly rising star throughout the club and fifteen year old Tommy struggling to keep up, swim practice became a challenge for coaches.


It didn’t take long for the club coaches to see that Tommy and Addie had developed a sort of sibling rivalry. Addie swam in the lane with the three other girls on the team and would edge her way to be leader of the lane in order to race against Tommy in the next lane over. Tommy would attempt to leave a second early on beep sprints because he didn’t want to be beaten by his little sister. She in turn would scream and holler every time Tommy’s hand left the wall ahead of the beep which would just cause her to leave even later. Being on the swim team together had brought them closer as they bonded over injuries, missed championship cuts and bad practices, but the competitiveness that developed would be engrained in both of them for the future.


Swimming and the team camaraderie that she was something that she felt was missing from her high school life of track and field. It allowed her to both release aggression and have fun. She knew that she wanted the challenge of helping Mark Penny exceed the expectations placed on his team. She wanted to be a Lady Tiger on the Towson Swimming and Diving team.

Chapter One - So Ambitious

"Motivation for me was them telling me what I could not be oh well..." 
- Jay Z ft. Pharrell "So Ambitious"

The downpour of rain had slowed to a mist when Adelaide Rossi began jogging her way to the high school track down the street from her house. The roads were slick and a lone car flicked its lights at her as it passed, but she kept her eyes trained straight ahead.  Her iPod attached to her bicep and the earphones stuck in her ears, she was separate from the world around her.  There was something about running this early, before much of the rest of her neighborhood was awake, that made her feel accomplished. The two miles to the high school track came quickly. It was the same track where she won the state championship just three months earlier for her school with her nano second win over her main rival. The same school where she had graduated from with honors. High school had always come easy to her. Well liked by peers and teachers, she barely had trouble with classes and dominated the track and swim meets throughout her four years. Her mother, Marnie warned her not to get complacent, not to expect that college would be as simple. Mom always worried: was there going to be traffic? would the rain ruin their shopping trip to Georgetown? will Starbucks have the pumpkin spice latte? Addie knew that she had breezed through high school and was more than willing to take on increasing responsibility and challenges.


College would be everything that Addie had dreamt it would be. The freedom to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. If she wanted to stay up until midnight doing absolutely nothing, she would. Hell, there was nobody to stop her. In late March, she had decided her next four years would be spent at Towson University, just outside of Baltimore, Maryland; a short hour car ride north from her home in Annapolis. She had chosen Towson mainly based on it’s location. The uptown area had plenty of restaurants and bars (for when she was of age of course), a movie theater and the mall. Downtown Baltimore held many more shopping choices and restaurants as well, along with an aquarium. A lifelong Orioles and Ravens fan, she was also closer to her favorite sports teams.


Another deciding factor was the sports teams at Towson itself. A four year letter winner on the track team, she had looked at Towson for their track and field program when her club swim coach mentioned that she take a look at the swim program as well. She had never thought of swimming in college, nobody she knew from high school or even her club team had made the decision to swim Division One; too much of a commitment, they all said. Addie decided to welcome the challenge. She competed in both track and swimming in high school, she could do the same in college. How much harder could it be?


Her research into the specifics of the two teams yielded some surprises. The track team practiced and held their meets in the brand new Johnny Unitas Stadium, a million dollar recently built football stadium with premium locker and training facilities. The grass for the field events was plush and the treatment the track team received was immaculate. The track team had also recently won their conference championship and had several girls who were already considered some of the best in the nation.


The swim team practiced and held their meets in Burdick Hall. A run down eight lane pool which looked as it if had seen better days. The ceiling above the pool was musty and blackened from dust, while there was a long crack going down the middle of one wall. Surely, there was an earthquake back in 1980 that caused it. The private locker room for the women’s team consisted of rusty lockers smaller than the ones in her high school and there was a window that was stuck permanently open. That would be interesting during a snow storm for sure. However, perhaps the window had been wedged open to attempt to rid the locker room of the mildew stench that permeated through it. The ventilation system was on the fritz.

Regardless on the status of the pool or the (smelly) locker room, it was the coaching staff in Burdick and the team which made her decision even harder.


Her visit with Coach Penny had been unexpected. It was the week before her graduation in late May when Addie and her mom went for a campus visit. They had decided to walk around and potentially get some Towson shirts for her father and brother when the campus would be less busy. After wandering through the University Union store with her mom, with numerous black bags in tow, they were walking out when someone nearly knocked them over sprinting out of the building.


In his mid thirties, dark brown hair, a five o clock shadow and sporting a white Towson polo, the man apologized profusely before stepping back. “Oh crap, I’m sorry. I’m in a rush to make a meeting and I didn’t even see you there.” Handing her the papers on dorm life, meal plans and class scheduling that she had dropped, he extended his hand as well.


“Mark Penny, head swim coach here and I’ve got a couple incoming freshmen and parents that I’ve got to get meet up with, but I don’t want you to think I’m a prick. You look like an athlete and I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot.”


“Swim team huh? Addie here is actually a runner, 400 and 800 meters and the 200 hurdles. But she swam on her club team all four years of high school. Nearly made Junior Nationals this past year. We’ve been trying--”


“Mom. Please. Let the man go on his way.”


“No, no. I’ve got time. Were you interested in trying out for the team, Addie, right?”


Thirty minutes and two diet cokes later, Addie had heard all about the women team’s quick rise from the bottom of the Colonial Athletic Association conference to losing the championship by a mere two points just months earlier. A rise which had coincided with Coach Penny’s tenure at the school. He talked about the team’s two a day practices in January when most college students were staying up late and sleeping in on their month long holiday. He talked about the one girl that he had make the NCAA Championships this past spring. He talked about how the team this past season was not expected to even compete for the conference championship, but how they came together the final day and made a good run at it. He talked about expectations and work ethic, and how he believed in open communication and that being realistic with someone was the only way to succeed.

“Your background in track could be a huge advantage for you in the pool. Swimmers are not known for their coordination on land, but someone who is active and cross trains will have an upper hand in the pool. Think about it and give me a call. We can work something out.”


With a handshake and a smile, Mark Penny grabbed his soda and walked away, but Addie was sure that it wouldn’t be the last time she talked to the coach.