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Feb. 9, 2004
By Sean Lauer
(Charlottesville, VA) – How are you planning on spending your summer before your senior year in college? Interning? Partying? Lying on the beach? Across the country and around the world, this summer will be very different for a select group of college students. These are not your typical collegians. They are student-athletes with their sights set on the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. However, the road to Athens is not one paved in gold. It likely resembles the roads of Charlottesville this winter: icy, snowy, and filled with potholes.
Among the student-athletes navigating the road to Athens is third-year swimmer Michael Raab. This season has become a breakout year for this Cavalier. The 9th-ranked swimmers owe much of their success to Raab’s unexpected achievements. This season, Raab holds the top ACC times in the 100 and 200-meter butterfly at 48.51 seconds and 1:41.54, respectively. In fact, his 200-meter time is second in the nation among collegiate swimmers. Instead of waking up to Punxsutawney Phil last Monday, Raab found himself as the reigning ACC swimmer of the week.
Surprisingly, competitive accolades in the swimming pool have not always been thrown in Raab’s direction. Three years ago, Michael Raab was just a good swimmer in Rockville, Maryland. He was not heavily recruited. Swim coaches were not knocking on his door.
” I was not very heavily recruited at all,” explains Raab. “I had to initiate communication with most of the big time programs myself.”
Unlike some nationally-ranked swimmers who swam the backstroke while still in their mother’s womb, Raab’s decision to get involved in swimming in the first place happened completely by chance.
“My parents were not high level athletes and neither were swimmers,” contends Raab. “I got involved in swimming because my neighborhood pool was a half block down the street. I joined the summer league team when I was six. I honestly never thought about college swimming until almost my junior year in high school.”
Being the son of two Virginia graduates put UVa at the top of Raab’s list of potential colleges. However, as he explains, there was more to his decision.
“I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go at first, but I knew Virginia was a good choice academically. It also had a great swimming reputation. Head Coach Mark Bernardino was very interested in having me on the team… Swimming so I could earn a scholarship was not my focus. I just wanted to reach higher levels and doing it just to reap the benefits of a scholarship were not what I wanted.”
Mark Bernardino has influenced much more than Raab’s decision to attend UVa.
“Mark’s experience has helped me a lot because he has coached many great butterfliers like Canadian Olympian Shamack Peitucha and current Assistant Coach Doak Finch. Mark was also a butterflier himself.”
However, Raab has no qualms with admitting his real reason for success.
“My key to success has been mostly the desire to get better. A lot of athletes have the ability, but without the drive, it is very hard improve year after year.”
Any recreational swimmer that has attempted to swim the butterfly knows that it isn’t the easiest stroke. However, for Raab, there isn’t any doubt about which stroke is his favorite.
“The 200 fly is my favorite event because it is my best event. Butterfly is my technically best stroke and the 200 distance is just right for my conditioning. It makes sense for it to be my favorite because I can compete at a high level in it. The 200 back would have to be my least favorite event. Consequently, it is my worst event by a long shot.”
Conditioning will increase in importance as the season continues to progress for Raab. The Cavalier swimmers participate in a long, grueling schedule that began in October and won’t conclude until the NCAA Championships at the end of March. However, for Raab, the end won’t be March. If all things go well, the end will be the Olympic stage in August.
Setting goals and maintaining focus throughout Raab’s upcoming competitions is a key strategy to his improvement. In order to make it to Athens, swimmers will need to qualify through time trials in July.
“The trials are most definitely my main focus in training,” explains Raab. “It changes my mindset because instead of looking at a season that ends in March, I’m looking at a giant season that extends into July and hopefully August. There won’t be any time for breaks this year after the NCAA Championships.”
Swimming in the Olympics would be an experience unlike any other in Raab’s life, as with most athletes.
“It would mean everything to me to represent the United States in the Olympics. The idea that only the top two 200 butterfliers out of all the competitive swimmers in the country compete in the Games is an honor I dream of having. However, just to have a chance at qualifying is something that I could barely imagine my freshman year before training at Virginia.”
The pool down the street from his home in Rockville, Maryland is thousands of miles away from Athens, Greece. However, if Raab makes it to the Olympics this summer, it is likely to be on the top of his mind. It is the place that he had his first swimming experiences. It is where the passion to swim was born in his heart. The Olympics is the pinnacle for swimmers across the world. A pinnacle that Raab is just steps away from reaching.