The Target Draws the Arrow
How Childhood Passions Shape Adult Purpose
When I look back at my childhood, there are a few coaches who stand out—coaches I’ll share stories about in the coming weeks.
Today, I want to highlight Charlie Zettel.
Charlie was my first swim coach. Charlie swam at the University of Pittsburgh and in the summers between semesters, he coached at Glenhardie Country Club. “The Glen” was my second home as a kid.
While I was already water safe, floating, and doggy paddling thanks to lessons at the YMCA, I was diving into the deep end at age 2. I did whatever I could to keep up with my older brother Eric and his friends. I wanted to fit in.
In the summer, Glenhardie would have two swim practices—one for kids 10 & up, followed by one for younger kids. By age 6, I’d ride my bike with Eric and his buddies through the neighborhood to practice each morning, scoffing down a buttered Eggo waffle along the way.
After witnessing my natural ability, persistence, and fearlessness, Charlie encouraged me to practice with the big boys, my heroes, to improve faster. He saw potential in me and wanted to harness it.
After two hours of practice, we’d replenish our glycogen stores with chicken finger Caesar salad wraps, cheese fries, Dove bars, and Brisk iced tea between games of ping pong and sharks and minnows.
Most days, we’d ride home in the afternoon and play wiffle ball in the front yard until dusk. If not, and we were still at the pool, we’d join the evening practice, getting extra laps in to get a leg up on the competition, or just because we loved it.
Twice a week in June and July, we’d have meets and compete against other kids from Picket Post, Whitpain Greens, and Upper Merion. I loved racing, because I almost always won. When I didn’t, I was devastated, but it made me want to work even harder and redeem myself.
Getting on the blocks, diving in, going all out for 25m without taking a single breath—sometimes solo, sometimes in relays with the Coe twins, Kyle Stefanic, or Drew Jackson—lit my competitive spirit and I was rewarded for it.
We’d look forward to the banquet at the end of each season. In 2002, in addition to individual medals, relay medals, and MVP, I was given the “I’m seven and I’m ripped” award. I was actually six. For context, I wasn’t a big eater as a kid and have had visible abs for as long as I can remember.
Nonetheless, Charlie honored and recognized not only athletes’ abilities, but more importantly, the hard work behind the results.
Charlie never failed to remind my mom and me that baseball was a spring sport—a nudge for me to solely focus on swimming in the summer, as I split my time between the two each year.
Because I swam for various teams simultaneously and pushed myself to get to the next level, the sport went from play to work; however, Charlie always tried to keep things fun. He was a cool teenager and I wanted to learn from him. I wanted to be like him—up on the lifeguard tower, big shades on, twirling his whistle lanyard around his finger. He carried a swagger, stoke, and enthusiasm that were contagious.
Against the counsel of my coaches, and even though it was the sport with which I had the most promise, I stepped away from swimming to concentrate on other activities, especially baseball. And truthfully, I didn’t connect with the competitive swim culture in high school.
Over time, I poured so much into baseball that it, too, felt like a chore, certainly once I realized that I wasn’t going to achieve my childhood dream of replacing Derek Jeter at shortstop for the Yankees.
I played club ball at Penn State for a few years, but got into weightlifting in college and dreamed about stepping on stage in bodybuilding competitions. However, after taking a Kinesiology class in my final semester in Happy Valley, I knew Ironman would be my post-grad athletic pursuit.
The dream of racing the Ironman World Championship in Kona led me back to the pool, where it all began, and reignited that competitive spirit.
Because of my precocious success in the water, I took swimming for granted as an adult, assuming that muscle memory would return quickly. It did not. Time and time again, triathlon reminds me that consistency is king. Volume negates luck.
It’s not to say that we should pursue something until we burn out like I did with swimming and baseball, but that every decision we make opens up a handful of other paths, ones that may come full circle and benefit us in ways we didn’t expect years later.
What are you drawn to? Follow it. It’s taking you where you’re meant to go, but you must be open to receive it.
“The arrow doesn’t seek the target, the target draws the arrow.”
- Matthew McConaughey
How much of our cultures are totally different. I am writing this from India. We generally don't have coaches which push us as sports as a whole has a different place in our country. We are not encouraged to pursue it & when we pursue any of the sport- we are discouraged not to pursue it.
And yeah one needs to follow the natural curiosity of theirs and try to pursue it. One can keep putting hours of flow state work w/o getting burnout or exhausted. And there is no replacement for joy & the thing which we really want to do.