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U.S. TEAM OLYMPIC TRIALS: SWIMMINGJune 27, 2012Breeja LarsonOMAHA, NEBRASKA THE MODERATOR: We have Breeja Larson. Q. You surprised everyone with your swim. Did you surprise yourself with that swim? BREEJA LARSON: Yeah, yeah. I tried to take it out faster tonight knowing that a lot of these guys would take it out faster, and I wanted to stay a little bit ahead, and it turned out for the best. Q. What the heck is going through your mind when you're on those blocks getting ready to start? What are you thinking about? BREEJA LARSON: You know, it's kind of an embarrassing question, because I'm pretty good at blanking out my mind. Me and my dad call it "the nothing box," so I just try and clear my mind completely, and if anything helps listening to the sound of the water or even trying to pick out the air conditioning to completely clear your mind. When you race that's not time for thinking; it's time for letting your body do what you want, and whenever I do think too much in my race, it never ends up being what I want it to be, so I'm thinking of absolutely nothing. Q. Can you talk about how far you've come over the past couple of years? How you have evolved as a swimmer since you started at Texas A&M? BREEJA LARSON: Sure. Coming into Texas A&M as a freshman was intimidating. I was terrified for my first practice, and I was really bad, and I'm still pretty bad at practice. I never trained at that level before. I started year‑round club my senior year of high school and Steve gave me the biggest opportunity I could have asked for. He took a big risk recruiting me. It was really hard, I was the slowest kicker, I probably moved backwards a little bit. All of the drills and everything, I was the last one to the wall and everyone had to be patient waiting for Breeja to come in so we could finish. And after NCAAs, I decided I would give it another year because it's so hard. It's so hard to do college swimming. It's definitely worth it; it has its perks, but after NCAAs that year, I wanted to give it another shot. I went home that summer to get a good, long summer home with family and when the cancer scare came, and it turned out to be false, that was the biggest relief of my life, and I took that opportunity as, this is my second chance. I only have three more years to have the time of my life with this college team, and I wanted to give it everything I had. Three years out of my entire life is not a whole lot to ask for, so I wanted to give Steve every effort I could for giving me this chance, and this year it turned out amazing. I wrote down what I wanted for short course on my hand every day, and I went faster at NCAAs, and I'm so grateful that he is my coach and he could share that experience with me. Now coming into this race and this competition, it was almost taboo to think one way or the other. I didn't want to say out loud, "What if I don't make it?" And I definitely didn't want to say, "What if I do make it?" And I started thinking, might as well keep saying, "When I make it," so if it doesn't happen, I'll be heart broken and get over it, but if it does happen it will be great. It's been a great ride so far, and it continues. Q. Can you take us through the cancer scare? BREEJA LARSON: I was at a friend's house, a birthday party and I'm close with the mom, she is a swim mom, and she noticed while I was chewing and swallowed my food that I had a couple of lumps in my throat, and they're still there, and she made a big deal about it, but I was kind of like, "Whatever." The next day I made a joke to my coach because I didn't want to go to practice that day, I was like, "Coach, I can't swim. I'm dying," and he said, "Breeja, what are you talking about?" And I was like, "Well I have lumps in my throat," and they took me to the emergency room, and they said it was a good chance it was cancer, and that rocked my world. And after that, for the next couple of weeks, it got really hard to get out of bed. I was like, why go and work hard when I might not be able to swim, and luckily I knew that thyroid cancer is the easiest cancer to get over, and it's the highest recovery rate so that was good. That was the positive of all of it. But it was scary to think I would have to have surgery on my throat. I need that to swim. So that was my big concern going on. After I‑‑ we have a lot of really good professionals in our masters program at Mesa Aquatics Club in Arizona, and one of them was friends with the doctor who saw me, and he took biopsies, and after many, many long hours of waiting he called me and he left a voice mail saying they were all benign and we'll just check in yearly to see how they develop and whatnot. They're not affecting my thyroid so they're just little friends that will stay with me for a while. Q. (No microphone.) BREEJA LARSON: Donna saw the lumps July 4th, and I'm not sure what day I found out that it wasn't, but it was about a month of thinking that, last year, my freshman summer. Q. My understanding was when you were in high school you guys moved, and you decided you were so serious about your swimming you were going to move back to Arizona and live with an aunt and uncle so you could swim. Can you talk about that decision and how it got to where you are today. BREEJA LARSON: It was really hard. I had just finished my two‑year anniversary with my boyfriend and it was hard to leave him, but my parents sat us down when we were younger and said, "Look, you're paying for your own college so you got to find a way." I loved the other sports, I loved volleyball, track, softball and all that but I figured swimming was my best bet, maybe I could get a college D‑2 scholarship, that would help with money, and Centennial High School in Boise, Idaho, the coach was great but it wasn't a sanctioned sport, and I swam four hours a week, but I realized if I moved to Arizona and got on a club team I could swim four hours a day and that would help my chances a little more. So my aunt and uncle offered for me to stay in their home and they were wonderful. They kept the food stocked that I needed and they were so wonderful. They let me use their car to get to practice every morning, and they were the most supportive aunt and uncle, and my whole family is supportive. I really could not have made it through that year without their help. They were amazing the whole entire time and they still are. It was good, though, because once I got on deck with Brad Hering, my first coach, he inspired me to keep swimming and have higher dreams, and he's the one who talked to the A&M men's coach about one of our male swimmers, Michael Knox and Jay Holmes said, "Do you have anyone else?" And he said, "Yeah, we've got a girl," and that's when Steve offered the trip, and that was the trip of my life. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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