Sometimes, when celebrities pass away, we romanticize their memories. Especially when it comes to athletes who we tend to idolize for their sporting performance, regardless of what we know about them off the field.
With Fran Crippen, there is no such problem. The outpouring of love for this man is genuine and well-deserved. This is a man who had a passion for everything he did, especially swimming, but he never let that passion interfere with him as a person.
A perfect example of this was at the Pan Pac Championships in the open water 10k. His teammate, Alex Meyer, was struggling, and so he sacrificed his own race to turn around and go back to aide his teammate until medic jetskis could arrive. But he was such a warrior in the open water that he fought all the way back to take a silver just a stroke behind the winner.
And this was not a unique story. Fran himself was a world class athlete, but he still was a great person. He was a warrior in the water, but a fun-loving guy out of it. He loved to win, but more than that he loved to represent his country and to be a teammate. Beyond the hole that his absence will leave on his team and for his family and friends, he will leave a hole in our sport.
When his older sister, and former Olympian, Maddie went on Good Morning America today and told us that that Fran would have wanted his legacy to be improving the safety of the sport as a whole, you have to believe her. Ironically, he had petitioned many governing bodies to look into these rules leading up to his death. But you know that if he’s watching, if there was even one other swimmer who was saved from meeting the same fate as he did, he would be satisfied that his life, albeit unnecessarily short, was well worth it.
If you never saw Fran swim, watch a race. He was inspiring in the way he swam. Then watch his post-race interview. Every time, even if he didn’t win, his answer will be “well, the Americans were able to go 1-2, so that’s awesome.” Check out the video below from GoldMedalMel after he took third at the 2009 World Championships. He ran head on into the final turn bouy, which probably cost him the title. Yet he’s still friendly. He’s still looking out for his teammates. And not in canned interview-speak, you can tell he’s genuinely happy that his teammate got second, even at his expense.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZHL6N6qjJ0[/youtube]
You can tell by watching him that he’s a guy you’d want to swim with, or just be buddies with. I won’t lush on, because I’m not that kind of writer. Mike Gustafson over at SwimNetwork did a great job of talking about how much Fran meant to him and those who were around him every day.
But I will leave you with this. There has been a call by many to swim your next week of practice for Fran. To leave it all in the pool every day. I will ask my swimmers to go beyond that. Swim the rest of this season for Fran. Lift your teammates up like Fran did. If someone asks you how a meet went, even if you had a few bad swims, tell them about how great one of your teammates did. Find a teammate that works hard in practice every day, and let him or her know that you notice. Swim for Fran, live for Fran, be better for Fran; let his legacy live on.