Olivia Carter’s swimming career has been
studded with peaks and relatively free of
valleys.
The
sophomore’s
record
shows
no
shortage of first-place finishes and record-
setting times. She’s represented two top-
tier collegiate programs, as well as her
country, in competition. But any discussion
of winning or losing overlooks her love of
swimming.
“I love the feeling of being in the water,
and having so much power to move that
water,” Carter said. “It’s an unreal feeling.”
That’s why the lowest point in her career
is right now. She’s been out of the water for
more than two weeks — the second-longest
such break since she was five. Without
the dependable structure of practice and
competition, Carter feels rudderless.
COVID-19 took away her chance at a
national championship last March and cut
her first semester at Michigan short. For one
of the first times in her life, Carter is staring
down an obstacle she cannot overcome.
***
Carter joined her second swim team the
same way she joined her most recent one: by
having the confidence to go for it.
She began swimming in the summer of
2004 in her hometown of Cary, N.C. At a
meet that summer, an opportunity to swim
on a year-round team presented itself in the
form of a tent handing out gear.
“I grabbed a free cap,” Carter said. “And
I ran up to my mom like ‘Look, I’m on the
team! They accepted me, I’m on the team!’”
It wasn’t as easy as Carter thought; she
still had to try out. But she made the team,
securing the spot entirely of her own volition.
The other constant in Carter’s pre-college
life — homeschooling— also began around
this time.
“When I was in it, and actually doing the
work, I think I might have had a different
opinion on it,” Carter said. “But looking back
on it, it really did shape who I am today.”
For Carter, the benefits of a homeschool
education
lay
particularly
in
the
extracurricular activities that it allowed.
She accrued physical education credits by
going flying with her father, a professional
pilot. Trips to the zoo were frequent. But the
fun stuff only happened when Carter made
the deadline on her work — a responsibility
she held.
“It was really good for me to understand
how to manage my time and manage my
studies so that I could open up free time to
do things that I wanted to do,” she said.
When her family moved from Cary to
Greensboro in 2016, Carter began swimming
at the Enfinity Aquatic Club. Training
under Enfinity coach Korey McCulley,
she shed more than five seconds off her
200-yard butterfly time and wound up as
the No. 11 recruit for the class of 2018 on
collegeswimming.com.
“With that team, and with that new
coach, I was really, really able to achieve
my dreams,” Carter said. “I had always had
the dream, since 2008, 2012, of being on the
Olympic team. … Once I started swimming
with Enfinity … I started realizing that those
dreams could actually come true.”
She committed to Georgia, along with
three other swimmers ranked inside the top
25. Carter more than held her own in the
deep SEC; she won SEC Freshman of the
Year, was named to the All-SEC first team
and placed seventh in the 200-yard butterfly
at the NCAA championships.
But Carter had committed as a junior in
high school — the decision, which was the
right choice for her then, didn’t age well.
Academics weren’t the issue; while the
more structured schedule and classroom
environments were new to her, her prior
education
left
her
well-equipped
for
the challenge of college courses. It was
something harder to quantify.
“Over the course of my freshman year,
I didn’t quite feel like I fit,” she said. “The
hardest part for me was admitting the fact
that I didn’t feel like I fit. It’s one thing to
sense it, but it’s another thing to come out
and tell my parents, ‘I don’t feel like I fit
here.’ I can’t say anything bad about the
team; it was a totally personal decision.”
So Carter grabbed the bull by the horns
once again, announcing her intent to
transfer. Her original plan was to take an
Olympic redshirt for the following season
and train for Olympic Trials at Enfinity,
but by early October 2019, she committed to
Michigan.
***
Before she stepped foot in Ann Arbor as a
student for the first time, Carter had already
made a strong first impression.
She joined the Wolverines on their winter
break training trip to Key Largo, Fla. In her
Michigan debut at the Orange Bowl Classic,
Carter set the meet record for the 100-meter
butterfly. A performance like that appeared
par for the course considering the high
expectations of the Wolverines’ coaching
staff.
“She swims a lot of different events, so
she will be scoring a lot of points in different
places,” Michigan coach Mike Bottom said
after the meet.
Carter made good on these expectations
by helping Michigan to a win in each of
the season’s remaining dual meets. The
Wolverines went on to take second place at
the Big Ten championships, where Carter’s
win in the 200-yard butterfly, fastest in
conference history, fell short of the mark she
wanted: a personal best.
“We had so much more to give,” she said.
“So much more to give. It was really a big
disappointment that we couldn’t win Big
Tens, so I know that just added to the fire that
we were going to put on at NCAAs. I am 100
percent confident that we could have gone in
there and absolutely dominated.”
Another personal goal — competing at the
Olympic trials — was put on hold when the
summer Olympics were moved to 2021. She is
aware of the kind of work required to make
that dream come true: increased attention to
detail in the water, as well as weightlifting to
strengthen her upper body. But right now, the
quarantine is preventing Carter from getting
back to work.
“(This) doesn’t feel temporary,” she said.
“It feels like the end of the world.”
***
After a dual-meet win over Ohio State in
January, in which Carter won the 200-yard
butterfly, Michigan associate head coach Rick
Bishop paid her the ultimate compliment.
“Obviously we’re better because of her
performances in the pool,” Bishop said. “...
but we’re just better because she’s a great
contributing athlete and a great Michigan
woman.”
Carter recognized the profundity of
the ‘Michigan woman’ title. She’s been a
Wolverine long enough to know that, but not
long enough to feel comfortable attaching it
to herself.
“I’m incredibly honored to have that title
already,” Carter said. “I feel like I haven’t
been there long enough to deserve that.”
It’s impossible to say when Carter will feel
that she deserves it. But when she can get
back to training, there is no doubt that she’ll
begin attacking her long list of goals — setting
a new personal best in the 200-yard butterfly,
scoring points for Michigan at national
championships and making the Olympic
team — with at least equal, if not increased,
drive.
She just needs a chance to move the water
again.
For one of the
first times in her
life, Carter is
staring down an
obstacle she cannot
overcome.
OLIVIA
CARTER:
MOVING
THE
WATER
Jack Whitten
Daily Sports Writer
Photo courtesy of U-M Photography
Design by Jack Silberman
FRIDAY,
APRIL 3, 2020
8
Michigan
swimmer adjusts
to being unable
to train