Before we jump into this conversation, a quick word from the guys over at Swim Nerd. Are you looking for a pace clock that won't break the bank? How about one that every swimmer can see? The Swim Nerd Pace Clock is the most innovative and affordable digital pace clock the world has ever seen. Their nine-inch tall green LEDs are specifically made for outdoor viewing and are visible from 100 meters away. Bluetooth enabled, it connects to your swim practice mobile app, allowing you to program any step your heart desires. Take a minute, go to swimpractice.com and check out their amazing new pace clock. It truly is the world's best swimming pool pace clock. That's swimpractice.com. One more time, because I really want you to take a look at this. The pace clock is the most quintessential piece of training equipment for any swim team. Go to swimpractice.com and get yourself the best pace clock in the world. Your swimmers will thank you. Today, the first of three parts with Sarah E. Kircher. Sarah's a swim coach who I've been writing about, alongside Irvin Muchnik, with whom she first shared her story on concussioning.net. On May 1st, she has a meeting with Tim Hinchy, the CEO and president of USA Swimming. I hope over the course of these podcasts to give listeners a chance to hear from Sarah herself and just find out how she got here. We're going to get a deeper look into her story. In this first part, we talk about her early childhood when she started swimming, and then the sequence of events that led to her moving in with her swim coach, Scott McFarland, toward the end of her junior year of high school. And just a warning for listeners, Sarah does mention McFarland's first sexual advance on her toward the end of the podcast. And as we continue the story from here, we both hope that listeners will learn a lot about many things beyond just the story of McFarland and her enjoy.
SPEAKER_02Somebody might say that that would be correct as well if they're German.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. We gotta get um we gotta get, you know, my friend Nico Messer from Switzerland. We gotta get him back on the podcast just for a ruling on your name pronunciation. Sarah doesn't even know how to pronounce her own name. Can we can we get you in here to tell her? Um Sarah, it's uh you and I have talked many times, uh, so we're gonna have to recreate some parts of that conversation for the podcast here. But um both you and I thought it would be a good idea to do something like this. I really think uh there's gonna be huge benefit to people just hearing your voice and uh you know being able to attach that voice to your story. And uh for the purposes of this, we're uh for everybody that's listening, we're gonna kind of break it up into two parts. And this um we're going to do our best, although when Sarah and I talk, we we never end up doing things in chronological order. We're gonna do our best to try and stay in chronological order um and you know tell tell some of your story. So um Sarah, like take us all the way back to the beginning. Um actually one thing that I'm curious about that you've told me about was that you were adopted. Um and do you know how old you are when you were when you were adopted?
SPEAKER_02I was ten months old.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So that's not something you have any memory of.
SPEAKER_02Um no, I just remember as a little kid knowing my entire life that I was adopted, and um I would go around the neighborhood asking everybody with blonde hair and blue eyes whether or not they were my natural mother.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I remember that story. It was just part of my life.
SPEAKER_01And then what what was the story too? You asked the woman who was pregnant um in your neighborhood.
SPEAKER_02In my yeah, in my neighborhood, there was this lady that I used to plant flowers with in her backyard and kind of go over and feed her toddler and stuff like that. And um when I was like, I don't know, five or six, seven years old. And uh I asked her one day, she was pregnant with her second child, and I asked her if she's gonna put her baby up for adoption. But I didn't even know what adoption meant. I just knew that's what you were. Right.
SPEAKER_01And you you had you had a brother. I mean you have a brother. Um I have a brother. Yeah. Uh and um tell me about your early childhood growing up uh with your mom and dad. What do you remember?
SPEAKER_02Um, my mom what's foremost in my mind is um the fact that my mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was six or seven.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um we lived we lived in Essex Park, Colorado, this little town up in the mountains, and um she was diagnosed and eventually we had to leave Essex Park and come back down to Denver because the medical care was much better down here. And um for some reason um I became her caretaker. And um so I basically did everything for her. Um because she got progressively more ill as as the years went on. She suffered for probably I I can't remember the exact age that she was diagnos diagnosed, what age I was. But I would say five or six years. Um and she ended up dying when I was thirteen in March of when I was thirteen of uh two brain tumors. And so before that she she had lost all feeling on the right side of her body and you know, couldn't walk and it was uh it was a difficult time for everybody.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, so uh you know, this is one of those things uh that I often think about with people, you know, and uh especially traumatic things that happen in their childhood. Uh like a at what age did you look back on that period and go, Wow, that was really messed up that I was, you know, seven years old or eight years old and I was a caretaker for my mom. Why wasn't somebody else doing that?
SPEAKER_02You know, I had I had resentments at, you know, each year that I got older. I don't think I realized that's how I felt.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_02Because I felt whatever I was feeling, I felt very guilty. I felt shame. I felt like I shouldn't feel like this, you know, because she's she's the one who's suffering. But then again, I didn't really understand what was going on in the rest of my world. You know, why was I changing this changing my mother's bed pants you know, at eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen years old. Um and, you know, cleaning up messes, you know, and it and it probably sounds horrible, you know, for me to even say that, but you know, I had a discussion with my dad and my stepmother one time we were having a meal um this was after maybe it was during I don't know, it was like twenty twenty-one, twenty-two probably. And um I it was the first time I ever said, you know, why did I have to take care of my mom?
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02And my dad's response was, Well, we all did it. And you know, and and and and the thing for me was, you know, my my father um you know, this German man, and if anybody knows German, you know, you don't it's just different, you know, he was super strict.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_02Um and um, you know, you didn't ask your parents a bunch of questions.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02You know, about what, you know, how much money do you make? You know, because kids these days ask their parents all sorts of things. How much so how much money do you make? You know, why can't we buy this? Why can't we buy that? Well, that's not how it was back then.
SPEAKER_01You don't even ask why the rules are what they are.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Which which is something my four year old asks me pretty much every rule I give her. She goes, Why, daddy?
SPEAKER_02Right. Right. So and and which was difficult for me because I'm a super inquisitive person and want to know the reason for things.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, especially when they don't make sense. So I just have to sit there in my things not making sense and um Yeah, so I didn't you know, I shared I sh I I shared a few more feelings about how I felt and that was it. And I you know, I felt I felt pretty good about it because I was able to even say that to him.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02You know. Right. Um because he's very set he was very set in his ways. And you know, I didn't even back then have the capacity for understanding that you know, you don't change people. You know. Um I just knew what was. What was is that my my dad was the boss. What he said he said, and he firmly believed in nine times out of ten he was not going to change his mind.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. So your your mom passes away when you're around thirteen. Now some sometime during this period when your mom's sick, you start doing competitive swimming. Wha how old were you when you got into got into swimming?
SPEAKER_03I was twelve.
SPEAKER_04Oh, so it was just before. Yes. Um Yeah, I joined a I'm sorry, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and uh w uh why did you do that? I mean, would you what do you remember about starting competitive swimming?
SPEAKER_02Oh, I know exactly why I started. There was a girl in my fifth grade class and she was on the swim team and um and I'm a super competitive person. So, you know, everybody was all pretty much what everybody talked about in my fifth grade class was this person swimming. And I'm like, Well, I like to swim, you know. I I sort of swam my whole life. And so that summer between fifth and sixth grade, I joined the summer league team in my neighborhood which she also swam on. Um and then that fall I decided to join um a swim team called Mission Viejo in Colorado.
SPEAKER_01Oh, a different Mission Viejo.
SPEAKER_02Yes. It um there was a like spin-off that the Mission Viejo company tried to do in Colorado. So they tried to recreate what was going on in California in Colorado.
SPEAKER_01Did they hire a an extremely short man to coach the team, or was that not part of the brand they were trying to replicate?
SPEAKER_03Eventually, yes, they did.
SPEAKER_01Sorry, Mark Schubert joke for everybody out there.
SPEAKER_03Not not not right away. Not right away, but yes, it's that's up and that's upcoming.
SPEAKER_01Because that was a tough part of their business model, was not, you know, first off, you gotta find a coach that that's that's that short, and then you have to find all assistant coaches that are shorter than that person, you know, and it it was man, that must have been tough.
SPEAKER_02So I just had a tad bit of star chat.
SPEAKER_01So so you so you start swimming for this um this uh this competitive team. Did you was was it pretty serious right away?
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, for some people. When I jumped when I was I was super serious about what I was doing, but you know, I went and tried out for the swim team and I was put into the um I guess it would be whatever anybody's first group is on the team, the developmental or back then it was called novice. You know, we even had meads that were called novice back then. We don't have those anymore, at least here in Colorado. And um so I was twelve years old and I was swimming with five, six, seven, eight year olds.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you wanted to get uh up and out of that group as fast as you possibly could to get to swim with kids of your own age.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I had, you know, the girl that I the reason that I joined the team, she was in a entire group and so were my friends and the people that I knew from school and you know, stuff like that. So no, I didn't want to be swimming um in the novice group for the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So w w what did your well what did your parents think when you started swimming? I mean, what was their attitude like towards it?
SPEAKER_04Um I don't I don't really remember. You know, I just um I knew that it was my happy place.
SPEAKER_02That when I went to swimming I didn't have to deal with anybody die that was dying.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um or anything that surrounded that, you know, that went along with that with my family. Um you know, because that's that was what we did with our our life. You know, we had to take care of my mother.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02And um so, you know, I had one or two hours of you know, my time solace being a kid. And yeah, being a kid and doing what I I love I love swimming. I mean I loved swimming before I even joined the swim team. And uh that reminds me when I was in um I can't remember what grade it was, maybe seventh grade. I uh my dad smoked a pipe all my life. And um I I enjoyed swimming so much that in in one of the it was probably a home some kind of home ex class that we were doing ceramics and I made him this giant ashtray in the shape of a fish. And um and I said I think it was for Father's Day and I it it said on it, Happy Father's Day from the fish. And you know, to the day he died he still had that ashtray. Which I thought was r which I thought was really cool because the thing is is that things sort of went awry because it was ginormous. I mean it was so big. I had to keep adding and adding and adding. It was probably twelve inches long and six inches wide.
SPEAKER_06Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02So it was this ridiculously large ashtray.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But I was super proud of it.
SPEAKER_01So your mom passes away when you're thirteen. Uh your dad remarried or got into a new relationship fairly quickly after that. And then you had a stepmother, is that correct?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Um, well, my stepmother was somebody that I'd known basically my whole life. She lived in the neighborhood that we lived at, um one of the neighborhoods. And I in the neighborhood that I, you know, asked people if they were gonna give their baby away and stuff like that. Um and I would plant tulips with her and she also would watch my dog and my parakeets and stuff like that when I was a kid. Um so so I knew her. Her daughter was babysat for us and um y you know, so right away my she was at the funeral of my mother and stuff like that. So they were like family friends and um so so it wasn't somebody like brand new. I I knew who she was.
SPEAKER_01And I think one part of your story is um, you know, at some point in when you're in high school, right, uh you as teenagers tend to do, but especially teenagers who have been through what you've been through, you start to rebel a little bit. Talk to me about that and talk to me about um what it was like at home with your your dad and your stepmom.
SPEAKER_02Sure. Um and and you know, first and foremost, you know, I was angry for a really long time about the events that happened that we're gonna talk about. But you know, I came to the conclusion years ago that I mean it took me a long time that you know they did the best that they could do.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I and I know that. You know, it took me becoming a parent to realize that.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um and because that's just really what we all do as parents. We do the best we can.
SPEAKER_01And having kids having kids definitely uh gives you a lot more perspective on your own parents, you know. It that forces you to do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well and and hopefully everybody, you know, because it seems like there's some sort of, you know, like teenage angst or something that everybody has towards their parents. And hopefully people get to the point in their lives where they that they do realize that, you know. Um because, you know, all of the horrible feelings I had towards my parents, my dad and my stepmother, um I didn't want to feel that way anyway. And um you know, 'cause nobody wants to walk around holding on to that for the rest of their lives.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_04But anyway, so back to like what happened. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So when my dad got married before my dad got married, my stepmother was super sweet, took my brother and I you know, out and shopping and she was just very nurturing and she it was awesome.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it made me it made me feel really good because, you know, I'd lost my mother.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And um I f I felt like, you know, somebody cared and somebody would be there for me. And um the funny thing is is that my dad broke up with her and uh you know, my dad would take me to swim practice one day and I I told him, I said 'cause he was conflicted. He didn't know he didn't know what he wanted to do. You know, he'd lost his wife of it was over twenty five years at that point that he'd been married to my mom. And um Yeah. And uh so you know, he he didn't know he didn't and what I'm assuming because you know, I didn't have these conversations with him because that's not what she did back then. Um was that he was just super conflicted about the whole relationship and didn't know and I said, You just need to marry her. You make each other happy, she makes you happy and he was just the type of person, as I think a lot of people in that generation, they like to have companionship.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02You know, he had companionship for twenty five to twenty-seven years and then there was nothing. Yeah. And I I wanted him to have that, you know. And so he ended up asking her to marry him and they got married and shortly thereafter she sat me down and she said and I I always do it in this voice of when he was explaining it to me. I'm like, You're gonna have your own life and your father and I are gonna have our own lives, and I was 16.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I was like, Well, that's not really gonna fly.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_02You know. Um my my brother, my brother had gone off to college, so I was the only one at home. And basically, you know, my stepmother wanted a life with my father, but not with me. And I interfered with all of that. And you know, she made schedules as to when my father could go to swim meet and um, you know, because I had high school mates that had year round meets, and you know, there a calendar and she would write on it when he was allowed to go.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, so I was extremely resentful. She turned into something completely different than what she was before they got married. And um and I was really, really angry. And I told her that that day. I I basically I I can't really say exactly what I said to her, but I I said um you know game on. Oh man You know, because my father and I were like super super close. Yeah. And um and and I think she resented that as well. And so she you know she tried to do things to minimize the amount of time that we spent together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um but I definitely don't want to sit here and bash on my step stepmother the whole time.
SPEAKER_01No. Um I don't think you're bashing on her. I I I actually think you've gotten to a really good place um you know that and and I think maybe in part two we'll be able to talk about some of the stuff uh that you told me about with your your dad and your stepmom uh late in their life the place you were able to get to with them. But as I'm listening to that story, I mean I'm like you know your stepmom saying like you'll have your own life I'm thinking like well Sarah you didn't even get your own life up to that point. So um you know you didn't even get your own childhood yet. Um so um I don't I I I uh I bet myself and a lot of listeners are a little mad at her but um you know these are these are tough situations. I was also thinking about my mom passed away a year and a half ago and uh my dad's had had three girlfriends since then and he just explained the exact same thing to me that you said you know he just said I I've been married to I was married to your mom for 40 years and I want a companion like I I want somebody to have a I said I I totally get it. Like of course you do. You know you you've gotten accustomed to the not living alone. And he also said you know I don't have that much time to like wait around um and I get that too I get that too so um this this is when you're 16 and pretty soon after that things sort of came to a head with your with your dad, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah well before so I basically to me things were so intolerable at home.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um besides my swimming. You know I always had my swimming I never missed swim practice. Um my focus was on swimming. I actually really didn't care about care about anything else.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um and um so I decided I was gonna run away. And um I think it was right when I got out of school my sophomore year. So I decided I was gonna run away. My brother took me to the airport um and we planned it so that it would be during swim practice time. So it was like he drove me to practice. So he drove me to the airport and my thoughts were actually I'm gonna run away to California and go into mission Viejo in California. Yeah. 'Cause that was a place to be run away Right, and how many people run away to go do that? So so that so that's what I did. I ended up in California maybe I don't know two or three days until um the police found me and put me on an airplane and I headed back to Colorado.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And um I had two very unhappy people when I arrived at the airport.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um and uh so basically all right now that was the summer before my junior year. So my junior year I was just extremely unhappy and my stepmother was not nice at all. Um I I felt abandoned, unwanted, um maybe even worse than I did when I was taking care of my mother.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um and um you know so I started ditching a lot of school and by the second semester um I I ditched French class for like two weeks. Wow. And I actu yeah I actually went in and I mean I knew that I was you know clearly I couldn't do that in past or anything else. So I went in to talk to my French teacher and you know explained things and he let me make up my work and you know as long as I agreed that I would come back to class and do what I was supposed to do. Yeah and that's what I did. But unfortunately as I found out when I was at swim practice one day um and my father showed up which he I don't think he'd ever been on the pool deck during one of my practices in my entire four year swimming career so far. And um when I saw him I was like I'm just gonna keep swimming. And um Scott McFarland was my coach at the time and um I I remember watching as I'm swimming because we were doing some free cells set and I remember being in the outside lane at my high school because we were training at my high school and um so I was kind of watching and swimming at the same time and m Scott and my father went into the office and then Scott came out a little time later and she was like Sarah you have to get out and I just kept swimming because I was like there's no way I'm going home with this man.
SPEAKER_00Something bad is something bad is gonna happen if I get out of this practice and I just want to stay in the water.
SPEAKER_02So I just kept swimming and Scott was like you have to get out and I was like no and I I seriously just kept swimming because I didn't care. I think I just thought in my mind that if I just kept swimming it would all go away.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And so I yeah so I finally got out and I got in the car with my father and um I don't really remember the car ride home whether or not he was yelling or screaming at me or he what he was probably doing because I think he liked he he secretly liked to torture me with silence was that he probably said nothing. And we got home and you know I changed my clothes, ate dinner whatever and then you know probably around nine o'clock that evening he sat me down and he said, Well we've decided that you have to quit swimming and I was like well I'm not doing that. And that was you know, I didn't like openly decide my father. Yes I you know did things that you know teenagers did behind parents back. Right stuff like that. But I I didn't that because that wasn't allowed.
SPEAKER_01It was a whole different thing to to go you know head to head with him rather than sort of sneak around something.
SPEAKER_02Right. I mean I was spanked until I was probably thirteen.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02You know one day he one day he's I got in trouble for something I don't even remember what it was and he's like do you want to go to swim practice with a black and blue handmark on your butt? And I'm thinking yeah of course I do of course I want to go to practice with black and blue handprints on my butt. Yeah okay that sounds fantastic. So so that's what it was like. Um so but I told him I said I'm not I'm not quitting swimming. You know he's like you have to quit swimming, it's affecting your school and in my mind I'm thinking well that's not really what is going on because I never told my father about the any conversations my stepmother and I had you know I didn't run off to him trying to turn her turn him against her or anything else. I d I didn't get in the middle of all of that. Yeah I just d I just dealt with the situation the way that I did. I guess that was you know what I knew how to do at that age. And um so he said well you know this went on probably for an hour or two and I had morning practice the next morning and he said I I said well I'm going to practice in the morning. He's like well if you go to morning practice don't ever come home again.
SPEAKER_05Wow.
SPEAKER_02And so I went to practice and came home and all of my stuff was out of my room outside and the doors were locked. And um so that was the last time I ever lived my parents and I went and lived with a friend of mine whose family graciously took me in but I think also was under the assumption that my father would get over it and it wouldn't be like the rest of my life. So I lived with them for three weeks and then you know obviously you know they're not adopting me or anything so yeah. Um I had to find another place to live. And um that's how I ended up living with Scott McRone.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And how so how long had Scott been your swim coach at this point? Because we sort of like introduced him in the story at this critical swim practice but I mean how long had you been swimming for him um when when all this happened?
SPEAKER_04I started swimming with him the first semester of my junior year. Which would have been a long time ago 1985.
SPEAKER_01Yeah but so before the events that you're describing here it's like six months or so like half a year or um or so?
SPEAKER_02Yeah and before before I got kicked out for it.
SPEAKER_04I mean do you remember what you thought of him as a coach then um I I so the bottom line was is I knew I wanted to move fast. And I felt from talking to other people on that team um but that's where I wanted to be.
SPEAKER_02You know and one of the big things was is that um Scott McFarland was the second coach from the Mission VAO Natadors that came to coach for my team in Colorado.
SPEAKER_06Yeah so he had that cache.
SPEAKER_02Yeah and it was like this big thing, you know, because that back in the eighties that was it. Mission Viejo.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so I think just by that I thought he would be a good coach and you know I wanted to swim fast so that's where I wanted to be. Um but but him as far as being a you know what he was like as a coach then that I remember before I moved in with him, you know, super strict. I remember one time he came up and put his um fingers around my biceps and basically basically told me how weak I was and that I needed to lose weight because and this was a favorite term of his I was pooy and I'm fairly I'm fairly certain I I weighed not even 115 pounds. Yeah. Um maybe I may have been heavy at 115 at that point. So maybe I was no you know what I was probably I was probably very fat. I was probably at least one twenty three to one twenty five.
SPEAKER_00I hope people can hear the sarcasm no I was but that that's what it was like.
SPEAKER_02You know hopefully at some point we can get to the get to the part of what he told me before I went to college.
SPEAKER_01Right. So so yeah so so you move in with him and what was that like so he lived in a one bedroom apartment.
SPEAKER_02I slept on the couch at the beginning. Um my entire swim team knew that I lived with him my school knew um my school did not report it to child protective services didn't talk to my parents as far as I know um and um I just you know went on with my life right trying to you know because really all I was focused on was women. Yeah I honestly didn't care about anything else but um I mean it was weird.
SPEAKER_04You know it it was it was obviously weird.
SPEAKER_01Um and it was uncomfortable um but uh anyway but in the beginning it was it was you you were sleeping out on the couch you know he would go uh back in his own bedroom and you guys would have meals together or you'd go to some practice together or that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_04Um and when did that change?
SPEAKER_01That changed over the summer um when we were at a meeting in Irvine and um he ended up staying with me the last night of the meeting and um like you you sort of cut down on hotel rooms and then somehow he was your roommate um yeah he was now my roommate which of course I thought it was odd and uncomfortable and everything else but you have to understand I was already living with him.
SPEAKER_02Right and he at that point he was paying for everything.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_04You know um so and I already felt you know I mean I felt bad every single day of my life about the fact that he was buying my clothes, feeding me um felt indebted to him.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely absolutely um and uh so we so we stayed in the same room we were sitting there talking he there were two double beds. Yeah we're sitting there talking um you know like you're having a slumber party here I'm like having a slumber party with my swimming coach and um um and then he do you want me just to to describe this? Yeah go ahead so he he walks over gets into bed with me and gets on top of me and tells me that he loves me and proceeds to have sex with me.
SPEAKER_01And that's when everything changed And I mean when that happened and you're are you still sixteen you just turned seventeen at this point.
SPEAKER_04Um like how much could you process what was going on? What did you think?
SPEAKER_01As far as what specifically like all all of a sudden your swim coach is having sex with you like what did you think about that at the time? Like what what was going through your mind?
SPEAKER_04Do you remember I believe I went to a place. I I I went to a place of where I didn't know it was happening.
SPEAKER_02I mean I knew it was happening and you know I I mean I can tell you it wasn't like it was interactive. So you kind of disassociated with the experience Yeah I think so yeah even even though I remember it vividly um and um and I remember the one thing I said to him was 'cause he has a mustache and I was fifteen years old and never had kissed anybody with a mustache and I was like I've never kissed anybody with a mustache Yeah and I know that's like really weird right well maybe it's really normal thing to to remember um I've never kissed anybody with a mustache I think if I did I I would remember it. It was pretty it'd be pretty weird huh?
SPEAKER_01That's the end of part one. Sorry to end abruptly but the conversation took a turn from here and Sarah and I want to continue that conversation on the next podcast. For more great swimming conversations go to chrisdcoach.com that's D H R I S D asantiscoach.com. You can also find me at Chris DeSantis Coaching on Facebook uh read my movie review maybe I I guess I promised another one this week I gotta get on that uh and continue to follow the story with Sarah. See you later this week