Lucas:  “I’m not the best swimmer on the team. I don’t want to pretend to be. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make an impact on a team that’s Division 1.”

Meet Lucas Esenwein, age 22.  A six ft. two in. tall sprint swimmer from UNLV.  His day starts at 5:30am. He will do one of four workouts types in the training pool: stretch, aerobic, quality, or power workouts. This will last until 7:30 am. He has a short break to eat and then do his second work out at 3:15 pm. Division one training ends at 4:30 pm.  His two a days result in roughly four miles of  swim daily.

Reporter Zack: “I think the question on everyone’s mind is, what do you eat?”

Lucas: “Eggs with bacon. Triangle hash browns. More bacon. Waffles, whip cream, syrup, chocolate chips. Yogurt with granola & chocolate chips. Fruit. I’ll aim for about a pound of beef with some greens and carbs for dinner or chicken. Those are my basics. But I absolutely love waffles! During the season I need to take in 5000-6000 calories a day.”

Z: “Where are you from?”

Lucas: “I’m from Ripon, a small almond farm town, near Modesto.”  A broad smile lifts his cheeks as he describes his hometown, “Every year there’s an almond blossom festival at Mistlin Park. I like the carnival rides and games.” His hazel eyes flash with excitement. At this moment, the twenty-two-year-old man seems boyish.

Z: “Can you describe a time where you were wild?”

Lucas: “Leaving my community college to be a swimmer at UNLV was pretty wild. Like I said, I’m not the best swimmer on the team. It’s hard when you go from a big fish, small pond, to small fish, big pond.”

Z: “How did you deal with the stress?”

Lucas: “I’d call home and talk to my Dad or Mom. My parents gave me the vote of confidence I needed to swim.”

Z: “What was a piece of advice your Dad would say?”

 Lucas: “I remember a time when I was younger. One of my chores included pulling the weeds in our yard. One time he got disappointed because us kids didn’t do a good job. What can I say? We were being a little lazy. My Dad said, ‘if you’re going do a job, no matter what the job is, do it one-hundred-percent.’ So that’s what I did with Division one swimming.”

Z: “Was there a specific time that advice came in handy?”

Lucas: “Yeah, at conference championships. I was swimming the 50 freestyle in prelims. I tied for 8th place. Had to do a swim-off for the A finals. It’s hard because your muscles are filled with lactic acid from the previous race and you only have so much time to flush it out. The lactic acid makes you tighten up which makes the next race more difficult to drop time and the 50 free is often won by tenths, maybe hundredths of a second. SO when I was competing against this guy, we tied, which meant we had to go again. I got in my lane and touched the wall at 20.29 seconds and so did he.”

 Z: “Fifty yards in twenty seconds. That must have been hard between breaths.”  

Lucas: “You don’t breathe for those twenty seconds. You just go. The fifty yards is largely determined by your entry, your breakout when you get to the surface, and your turn. You don’t want to break your line to take a breath in that race”

Z: “So what happened on the second swim?”

Lucas: “We tied again. So we had to go a third time.”

Z: “And?”

Lucas: “He ran out of gas! I dropped time again and he wasn’t able to hold on so I went on to the A finals and he dropped to the B finals.”

Z: “So you’re a champion!”

Lucas: “No man, I just never quit. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to swim my senior year but once I committed I was all in and I needed to make it to the A finals.”

Z: “Oh that’s right, you mentioned that. So why did you?”

Lucas: “I had a friend from recreation swim when I was much younger. We were both on the Ripon Sea Lions. His name was Ty Wells, he swam for University of Arizona. He was wild and had such positive energy. Ty encouraged me to do D1 because I wasn’t sure my times were fast enough, but he knew I would improve in the right training environment. Starting off, I wasn’t really doing that well with my team. I didn’t know very many people and it was hard to adjust to the training. If it wasn’t for Ty, I might have only lasted one year. Things just weren’t going great for me.  Whenever I would have doubts during the season, Ty would always encourage me to never quit.”

Z: “That’s interesting. Where is Ty now?”

Lucas’ face muscles droop. His eyes hollow as he looks past me, the boy becomes a sullen man, “I’m still not sure exactly how it happened but one day during one of our competitions, I got a call from my brother letting me know that he passed”

Z: “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Lucas looks at me. His face animates as the light flashes back in his mournful gaze, “I wasn’t sure I was even going to make the conference team that year but a teammate was injured so I stepped in to swim. That conference, after a whole season of being unsure if I would improve, I saw big time drops for me. I swam for him.”

There is a long pause between two people who have suffered the loss of a good friend. I change the subject, “what was your major at UNLV?”

Lucas: “Econ.”

Z: “What’s your dream job?”

Lucas: “I’d like to do wealth management with JP Morgan.”

Z: “I noticed you were mentioned in Forbes, so you’re off to a good start.”

Lucas laughs and rubs the back of his neck. What shocks me about this accomplished twenty-two y/o is how exceptional he is, but when I ask a question, he goes from being a man to a bashful boy.

Lucas blushes, “Yeah… I guess so.”

Z: “How did that even happen?”

Lucas: “A  friend asked if I wanted to go to the day club at Resorts World. While we were there, someone from the casting team came up to me in the pool and asked if I ever modeled. I said I hadn’t and they asked if I’d like to audition and try it out. They liked my look and walk so I gave them my information, and got the email saying I was selected while I was on a cruise.”

Z: “Wait… one of the first times you modeled and walked the runway was for STYX Athletics?”

Lucas: “Yes!”

Z: “And you made Forbes?”

Lucas: “Crazy right?”

Z: “I’ve noticed from your Instagram account that you’ve modeled for a few other shoots. What designer would you want to model for next?”

Lucas: “Ralph Lauren. Speedo. Versace.”

Z: “If you got back into a swimsuit today, what would you change?”

Lucas: “I would work on strengthening the inner lining. Our suits often don’t dry enough before our second practice and the inner lining will get stretched out. Then the inner lining starts to rip and make the suit very thin.”

  Z: “Who do you want to be in 5 years?”

  Lucas: “I’m currently looking into positions in wealth management or risk analytics. 

  Z: “If you could say one last sentence to the world, what would it be?”

  Lucas: “Never stay complacent, be ambitious.” 

Lucas is an interesting fellow. He is adventurous. Handsome. Single. Ready to enter the workforce with a competitive eye on finance. What I find most interesting about the interview is that he wanted to check with Ty’s parents before he told the story. I thought that was so incredibly considerate. 

I asked him why. He said, “I don’t want them to have to relive their loss.”

I don’t know who Ty is, but I wish he were around so I could ask him what he thought of Lucas. Why did he encourage him? That is the thing with being a champion. I seldom talk to athletes that don’t discuss who it was that encouraged them. As we go about our business this week, maybe encourage a friend, a family member, or a co-worker to do better. Reach a little further. Be a little more than they were. Thanks for the interview, Lucas, you don’t have to hold your breath anymore, it’s okay to breathe.  

by: Zachary Lovelady & Lucas Esenwein