David Plummer and .12

7/31/2013

By Mike Gustafson//Correspondent

.12.

That’s all that stood between David Plummer and his dreams. A fingertip. An eye blink. A snapshot away from the Olympics.

.12 can affect a person in immeasurable ways. A swimmer could spend hours, days, months, or years pondering .12. After Plummer finished 3rd at last summer’s Olympic Trials, he took a road trip. He detached a bit. While fellow competitors trekked to London, Plummer took to the highway, dog at his side. The trip’s intention was to step back, gather thoughts, and reflect. He watched little of the Olympics. The two guys who beat him at the Olympic Trials – Matt Grevers and Nick Thoman – went 1-2 at the Olympics. It’s almost a predictable storyline in men’s American sprint backstroke: Top 2 later earn Olympic hardware, and Trials Third takes a road trip.

However, while on the road, Plummer made a decision: He was not done. His journey was not yet over. Though he knew he’d have his work cut out for him, as neither Grevers nor Thoman would retire any time soon, Plummer also knew that .12 is not insurmountable. In actuality, .12 is encouraging, with the right kind of perspective. It’s a lot better than 1.2. Much better than 12. So, following the road trip, the Minnetonka-trained swimmer, at age 27, decided that there was more in the tank. The journey was not over. It would not end with a Trials Third.

Flash-forward to last night, when Plummer became a World Championship silver medalist. Later, he wrote on Facebook, “Finished with my first individual medal in a 1-2 sweep. So happy to represent my country and thankful to everyone who has helped along the way (especially my wife!).”

This past year could not have been easy for Plummer. In any other country, Plummer would likely have been an Olympic medalist. That’s the difficulty of being a sprint backstroker in the United States: This nation practically breeds ‘em. Churns them out. We sweep the event Olympics after Olympics, World Championships after World Championships. Legendary backstroke names rotate like a merry-go-round: Rouse. Krayzelburg. Peirsol. Grevers. Imagine the immense sense of self required to throw your name into that hat and say, “I belong here, too.”

Perhaps that’s what Plummer found on that road trip: The confidence that future competition against Olympic gold and silver medalists would not crush the ego or self-esteem, but instead become fuel for the fire, the volume on the alarm clock.

Plummer, recently married (just like Grevers), is coached by a friend of his, Ben Bartell. He pretty much trains alone, though he occasionally has some competition from younger peers. The duo are analytical and slightly unorthodox. Their plan worked in 2010, when Plummer upset Peirsol and company to take his first national championship. It nearly worked in 2012. And in 2013, they made yet another game plan.

They refused to let .12 be the defining twelve-hundredths of their lives.

True, Plummer missed London. But he made Barcelona. Not an easy feat in this backstroke-rich nation. Last night, as the world watched, Plummer earned his international shot. After the swimmers hit the wall, there was Plummer, in the thick of the heat, stroke for stroke, charging home. Clawing. Churning. Reaching under the flags. You could almost feel his teeth gritting.

When the race was over and the waves settled, it was yet another predictable storyline in American backstroke: 1-2. With one swim, Plummer proved not only does he belong among the American backstroking legends, but he also declared that his journey is not yet over. A 27-year-old who refused to be defined by Trials Third has now earned a World Championship silver medal. And possibly, later in the relay, something even more.

Mental fortitude. Refusing to quit. Confidence in one’s self. Journeys are so many times defined by their destinations or ending points. It’s difficult (and impossible) to state if Plummer would have won an Olympic medal last year. But it’s accurate to state that his Trials Third has now resulted in a Worlds silver.

Everyone experiences disappointment. It seems that champions, however, simply don’t let disappointment become their defining moment. At Northwestern, training a few lanes over from Matt Grevers, I remember his own struggles, shortcomings, and near-misses. No one talks about these moments because no one remembers them. He refused to let them define him as a swimmer. Now he’s the best backstroker in the world.

And Plummer is No. 2.

I spoke with Plummer last autumn as he prepared to re-enter the aquatic arena for the Arena Grand Prix at Minneapolis. He spoke of that road trip and taking one meet at a time. He was going to try again. He was going forward. There was hurt in his voice, still, but also a fire. It seemed as though, yesterday, that inner-fire finally won.

“I think the biggest thing at this point is that it’s been harder to give up than to keep going,” Plummer told me last October. “There’s still so much I want to accomplish in this sport. I still feel my best race is inside me. Until I can get that out and truly feel in that one race I gave everything I had and it happened the way I wanted it to and I got everything out -- until I do that, I don’t know if I’ll be capable of retiring.”

No one deserved that silver medal more than Plummer. No one has fought harder in 2013 to overcome that .12. We’ve seen an emergence of Trials Third swimmers who broke through these past 6 months, like Plummer’s World Championship teammate, Liz Pelton. Pelton said last month, “Getting third place is probably the greatest gift in disguise. It gives you the motivation that never goes away.”

.12.

It’s a number that used to mean something.

Now it might as well mean, “World Championship silver medalist.”

Mike Gustafson is a freelance writer for USA Swimming and Splash Magazine. Follow him on Twitter @ MikeLGustafson.