“I’m not the best swimmer on the team. I don’t want to pretend to be. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure I would be able to make an impact on a Division I team.”
Meet Lucas Esenwein, 22, a 6-foot-2 sprint swimmer from UNLV. His day begins at 5:30 a.m. with one of four workouts in the training pool: stretch, aerobic, quality or power. Practice runs until 7:30 a.m. He eats, recovers and returns for a second session at 3:15 p.m. By 4:30, his two-a-day training has carried him through roughly four miles of swimming.
Zack: I think the question on everyone’s mind is: What do you eat?
Lucas: Eggs with bacon. Triangle hash browns. More bacon. Waffles, whipped cream, syrup and chocolate chips. Yogurt with granola and chocolate chips. Fruit. For dinner, I’ll aim for about a pound of beef with greens and carbohydrates, or chicken. Those are my basics. But I absolutely love waffles. During the season, I need between 5,000 and 6,000 calories a day.
Zack: Where are you from?
Lucas: I’m from Ripon, a small almond-farming town near Modesto. Every year, there’s an almond blossom festival at Mistlin Park. I like the carnival rides and games.
Zack: Can you describe a time when you did something wild?
Lucas: Leaving community college to swim at UNLV was pretty wild. Like I said, I’m not the best swimmer on the team. It’s hard when you go from being a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a big pond.
Zack: How did you handle the pressure?
Lucas: I would call home and talk to my dad or mom. My parents gave me the confidence I needed to keep swimming.
Zack: What advice from your dad stayed with you?
Lucas: One of my chores when I was younger was pulling weeds. Once, my dad was disappointed because we had not done a good job. We were being lazy. He said, “If you’re going to do a job, no matter what the job is, do it one hundred percent.” That’s what I tried to do with Division I swimming.
Zack: Was there a moment when that advice became especially important?
Lucas: At the conference championships, I was swimming the 50 freestyle in the preliminaries. I tied for eighth place, so I had to do a swim-off for the final place in the A final. Your muscles are already filled with lactic acid from the previous race, and you only have so much time to clear it. The 50 free can be decided by tenths—or hundredths—of a second. We raced again and both touched the wall at 20.29 seconds.
Zack: Fifty yards in twenty seconds. That must have been difficult between breaths.
Lucas: You don’t breathe for those twenty seconds. You just go. The race is largely determined by your entry, your breakout when you reach the surface and your turn. You don’t want to break your line to take a breath.
“You don’t breathe for those twenty seconds. You just go.”
Zack: What happened in the next swim-off?
Lucas: We tied again, so we had to race a third time.
Zack: And?
Lucas: He ran out of gas. I dropped time again, and he couldn’t hold on. I advanced to the A final, and he went to the B final.
Zack: So you’re a champion.
Lucas: No, man. I just never quit. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to swim my senior year, but once I committed, I was all in. I needed to make that A final.
Zack: Why did you keep going?
Lucas: I had a friend from recreational swimming when I was younger. We were both Ripon Sea Lions. His name was Ty Wells, and he went on to swim for the University of Arizona. Ty was wild and had such positive energy. He encouraged me to pursue Division I swimming because I wasn’t sure my times were fast enough, but he knew I would improve in the right training environment.
Lucas: When I started at UNLV, I wasn’t doing very well. I didn’t know many people, and it was difficult to adjust to the training. If it weren’t for Ty, I might have lasted only one year. Whenever I doubted myself, he told me, “Never quit.”
Zack: Where is Ty now?
Lucas pauses before answering.
Lucas: I’m still not sure exactly what happened. One day, during one of our competitions, my brother called to tell me that Ty had gone to the hospital—and he never came out.
Zack: I’m sorry.
Lucas: I wasn’t sure I would even make the conference team that year, but a teammate was injured, so I stepped in. After a whole season of wondering whether I would improve, I had major time drops at that conference. I swam for Ty.
“I swam for Ty.”
There is a long pause. Then the conversation moves toward the future.
Zack: What did you study at UNLV?
Lucas: Economics.
Zack: What is your dream job?
Lucas: I’d like to work in wealth management with JPMorgan.
Zack: How did you end up on the STYX runway?
Lucas: A friend asked if I wanted to go to the day club at Resorts World. While we were there, a casting director approached me in the pool and asked if I had ever modeled. I hadn’t. They asked if I wanted to audition, liked my look and walk, and took my information. I received the email saying I was selected while I was on a cruise.
Zack: One of the first times you modeled was for STYX Athletics?
Lucas: Yes.
Zack: And that appearance was included in Forbes coverage?
Lucas: Crazy, right?
Zack: What designers would you like to model for next?
Lucas: Ralph Lauren. Speedo. Versace.
Zack: As a swimmer, what would you change about swimwear?
Lucas: I would strengthen the inner lining. Our suits often do not dry completely before the second practice. Over time, the lining stretches, tears and makes the suit too thin.
Zack: Where do you want to be in five years?
Lucas: I’m looking at positions in wealth management or risk analytics.
Zack: If you could leave the world with one sentence, what would it be?
“Never stay complacent. Be ambitious.”
The detail that remains with me is not Lucas’s race time, his runway appearance or even the three consecutive sprints. Before speaking about Ty, Lucas wanted to make sure Ty’s parents were comfortable with the story being told.
When I asked why, he answered simply: “I don’t want them to have to relive their loss.”
Athletes rarely reach defining moments alone. Behind the performance is often a parent, coach, teammate or friend who told them to continue when stopping would have been easier. Lucas carried Ty’s words into the water: never quit.
Maybe that is the challenge for the rest of us this week: encourage someone to reach a little farther and become a little more than they believed possible. Thank you for the conversation, Lucas. You do not have to hold your breath anymore. It is okay to breathe.
Read the companion story on Inside STYX: From Division I Swimming to the STYX Runway.
Featured athlete: Lucas Esenwein