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Riding the Wave: A Swimmer’s Fight to Live above Water

by Paul Gackle

AS HE DID every day after weight training, Kicker Vencill parked his blue Toyota 4-Runner in front of his apartment. He noticed a FedEx package against the door. Probably swimming gear. He and his roommate, both swimmers, got packages like this often, from the likes of Nike or Speedo seeking swimmers to sponsor.

The label said: United States Anti-Doping Agency.

Oh, shit, he thought, I’m in trouble. This was not a swimsuit.

He rushed inside and tore the package open. A letter said: “A-sample . . . urine-doping test . . . positive for 19-norandrosterone.” The chemical was a form of steroid, banned in the world of competitive swimming.

A wave of nausea crashed in Kicker’s stomach.

What am I going to do? He asked himself. He paced around his living room. Finally he screamed: “What the fuck? Fuck this! What am I going to fucking do?”

He telephoned his friend and training partner, Jason Lezak. Neither would forget the conversation and its urgency.

“Jason, you won’t believe this. I failed my drug test.”

“What? Have you talked to Dave?” Lezak meant Dave Salo, coach of the Irvine Novaquatics swim team, who was training Kicker for the 2004 Olympics.

“No.”

“Man, that can’t be right. Don’t worry, this has got to be a mistake.”

Kicker dialed Salo.

“Dave, you won’t believe this. I tested positive on a drug test.”

“What?” Their words, too, were instantly indelible. “This has to be a mistake, Kicker. Relax. Don’t worry about it.”

“There is a lot of material here: data, documentation, things that the machine read. I need your insight on this.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll sit down and take a look at this. Just make sure that you don’t throw whatever you’ve been taking as a supplement down the toilet. Have you talked to anyone else?”

“Yeah. Jason.”

“Let Jason know that we want to keep this whole thing quiet. Not because we’re hiding something, but because we need to find out the facts so we can see what is going on.”

Hide it they could not. Life for Kicker Vencill, 24, silver medalist in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay at the World University Games and a contender for a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team, would never be the same.

***

Kicker, named after what he did to his mother before he was born, made his first splash in competitive swimming at age 4. As a natural athlete, he eclipsed most of his peers in Richmond, Kentucky. By his senior year at Motel High School, he reached an elite level of competitive swimming by qualifying for Junior Nationals in the 200-meter freestyle.

In 1996 Kicker went to Western Kentucky University under a full athletic scholarship. But then he stagnated. During his first three years of college, when most Olympic swimmers hit their prime, Kicker waddled in mediocrity.

Assistant swim coach Steve Crocker decided to experiment. Maybe Kicker would do better in a shorter race: the 100-meter freestyle. During the summer before his senior year, Crocker sent him to Little Rock, Arkansas, for training under Paul Blair, a well-respected sprint coach.

Kicker trained alongside J. J. Marcus, who had made the U.S. national team for the 2000 Pan-Pacific Games. They spent most of their waking moments together and quickly became friends.

One day after practice, Kicker and J. J. discussed supplements. Kicker said he used supplements designed to help muscle recovery: flax seed oil, glutamine and creatine. J.J. told him about
Super Complete, an inexpensive multivitamin made by Ultimate Nutrition, Inc.

“Those multivitamins that you’re taking are like $25 for 180 capsules,” Kicker would remember J.J. saying. “You can get 270 capsules of Super Complete for $20, and they’re just as good.”

Kicker was sold. He began taking three tablets of Super Complete three times a day.

The sprint experiment paid off. Back in Kentucky for his senior year, Kicker broke two school records and was named the 2002 Western Kentucky University Male Athlete of the Year.

Soon after graduation, he qualified for the U.S. national swim team and won a silver medal in the 4 x 100-meter freestyle relay at the 2001 World University Games in Beijing, China. At 23, when most college swimmers face retirement, Kicker blossomed. His dream of competing in the Olympics was suddenly realistic.

In early 2000, Kicker left for California and the world-class Novaquatic club team, Nova for short, in Orange County, which featured two of the world’s best 100-meter freestylers: Jason Lezac and
Scott Tucker. Kicker’s childhood fantasy was beginning to materialize. His parents offered $400 a month toward rent so he could focus as much as possible on making the 2004 U.S. Olympic Team.

As he trained with Nova, and Dave Salo became more than Kicker’s coach: He was Kicker Vencill’s friend, mentor, source of guidance and counselor in adversity.

***

On the day Kicker’s life changed, he tried to resume his daily routine. He went to practice at four o’clock, but swam without distinction. After practice, Salo reassured Kicker that he was going to help him and was on his side. But Kicker needed assurance that Salo could not provide. So he called his mother,
Sylvia Vencill, a schoolteacher. “Mom, I have something to tell you. I know that there isn’t any question of whether or not you’ll believe me, but this is hard. You might want to sit down. I tested positive on a drug test.”

“What’s that mean? Oh, God, what’s that mean?”

“I took a drug test on the 21st, and they said they found this stuff in there that is considered a steroid. I don’t know where it came from, and I don’t really know what to do. I’m working with Dave, and we’re trying to figure out what’s going on.”

“Are you positive you didn’t do anything? You can tell me. I just want you to be honest.”

“Mom, I swear to you, swear to God on everything, on the family, everything that’s holy, I would never do anything like that. I would never take drugs. It would never be worth it for my health or for me as a person. I’ve never tried to take any shortcuts.”

“That’s all you have to say.”

In April, Kicker’s parents drove from Kentucky to Indianapolis, Indiana to watch him compete in the 2003 Conoco-Philips Spring Nationals.

He was eligible to swim competitively until his hearing in front of the American Arbitration Association (AAA), a panel independent of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), scheduled for June 21 and 22.

At night, Kicker tossed and turned for hours. Nonetheless, he swam his best time, leading off the 4 x 100 freestyle relay. After the race, he hugged his parents. Tears poured out of Sylvia’s eyes. She whispered to him: “I’m just scared that this is the last time I’m going to see you swim.”

Kicker heard his father’s reassuring words: “Whatever we have to do, let’s do it.”

With uncertainty clouding his future, Kicker decided to be self-sufficient. He needed a job. So he added 40 hours a week at Home Depot to his rigorous training schedule.

Before long, he began to deteriorate both physically and mentally. He started to question himself. Everybody’s calling me a cheater, he would think. Maybe I am a cheater.

His demons began to accompany him to swim meets.

Kicker would recall standing on the block at the Canada Cup in Calgary, Alberta, unable to focus on swimming.

One question kept repeating itself in his mind: Is this the last time I’m going to race?”

In May, he attended a swimmer’s orientation camp in Colorado Springs, Colorado, for the Pan American Games swim team. On a flight from Denver, Kicker sat next to Beth Botsford, a two-time gold medalist at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He had met Beth previously at a swim meet in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but now they hit it off. Over the next three days, they spent time together whenever they could.

Kicker told her that he’d failed a drug test.

Okay, well, if you cheated, you should be punished, Beth would remember thinking. But Kicker was fun, charming and charismatic. As camp wound down, she suggested that Kicker drive out to Tucson, Arizona to visit sometime for a weekend.

A month later, he accepted her invitation. They started dating. Beth became a constant amid the turbulence in Kicker’s life. She decided he wasn’t the kind of man who would cheat to get ahead. She believed him when he said: “I’m 24. If I was going to cheat, I sure as shit wouldn’t have waited until now.”

Kicker raced on, posting decent times, through the Speedo Grand Challenge held at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California, on May 23-25. After the meet, Kicker received a letter from FINA, the international federation for the sport of swimming, informing him that he was no longer eligible to swim competitively.

Later that day, Kicker gave up.

(continued on page 2)