via www.thepostgame.com: Coaches loved Fran Crippen for quite a number of reasons. He was always on time, almost always in a good mood. He was vocal, he was motivating, he was enthusiastic. He was attentive and responded exceptionally well to a challenge. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about Fran was not just his willingness to suffer but an actual desire to do so. He bought into the benefits of suffering. He thought there was something inherently good in punishing parts of his body that most mortals don’t know exist. Tough didn’t quite cut it – we were all tough, to varying degrees above normal – and it wasn’t simply that he had an enormous capacity to hurt himself. It was that Fran saw something spiritually beneficial to suffering in the water. He believed in pushing past pain -- "Tired is not a word in my vocabulary," he used to joke, not really joking -- to discover what lay beyond it.
PLEACE READ THE REST OF THIS GREAT BLOG FROM IAN PRICHARD (at Yahoo Sports). Prichard, a six-time NCAA All-American swimmer (UVa '04), writes, teaches, works and lives in Ventura, California. Email him at Ian.Prichard@gmail.com.
(I swam, I swim, and as a swimmer I love swimming.)
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