Take inventory of any teenager’s surroundings and you will invariably be able to make some semblance of a prediction as to that teenager’s potential for success.
The potential outcome for nearly every situation in life leans on infinite variables.
17-year-old Jarrett Jones became just the third Cape Cod Swim Club member ever to qualify for the Olympic trials and the first Cape high school student to do so just over a week ago in Buffalo, NY.
Photo courtesy of Stacey Vendetti
This is the sort of mathematical and very real-life quandary that fascinates, perplexes and drives Falmouth High School junior Jarrett Jones.
The first Cape Cod high school athlete and third all-time Cape Cod Swim Club member to ever attain an Olympic-qualifying competitive swim time, a little over a week ago the lanky, 6’3”, 17-year-old Jones opened eyes across the country when he defeated University of Pittsburgh sophomore swimmer Zachary Lierley at the 2015 Speedo Sectionals Spring Long Course at Erie Community College in Buffalo, New York.
The difference between Jones and Lierley? Nearly four seconds.
The difference that made Jones a potential member of Team USA rather than just another in a long line of potential Cape Cod superstars? 0.01 seconds.
Jones’ qualifying time in Buffalo at the end of March came in the 400 meter Long Course Individual Medley. His time was 4:27.48. The time to qualify for the Olympic trials this summer was 4:27.49.
While the phrase “Hard work pays off” should be tattooed across his back in bold calligraphy, what made Jones’ recent feat that much more incredible was that just weeks before he had undergone his second tonsillectomy and was relegated to bed rest for an unthinkable three-week span. He lost 20 pounds. He was forced to ingest nothing but liquids and even that was painful. Still, he drove himself to complete this near year-long mission to give everything he had left in the tank in Buffalo at the end of March. This was his chance. This was his moment.
For most of us, if we could sanely grasp that the difference between our own individual success or failure boiled down to less than the blink of an eye, we’d still be overwhelmed. For Jones, whose passion in life other than swimming is grappling with such mind-twisters as Abel’s binomial theorem, his take is surprisingly “old school.”
Jarrett Jones puts nearly 30 hours a week before school in the pool, another 10 hours in the gym with fitness guru Gus Adams (background) and swims 50 miles a week on top of an all=AP class academic workload.
Sean Walsh/Capecod.com Sports
Each week, from Sunday to Saturday, Jones swims 50 or more miles. When he’s not in the pool at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, he’s at Falmouth Physical therapy under the tutelage of fitness guru Gus Adams, along with any number of the Cape’s up-and-coming, top high school athletes. Jones eats dinner at 10:00 pm every night. His body devours calories like a .50 caliber M2 Browning machine gun devours bullets. He doesn’t complain about being “sore” or “tired” – he thrives on it.
If eight hours of AP classes and 30 hours of swimming and 30 hours of studying per week means his ten toes might be curling over the starting block at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, then the price to pay for success does not seem insurmountable to one of the top-ranked students in his class at Falmouth High School.
But having already earned the potential to one day soon stand side by side with such international superstar athletes as Michael Phelps doesn’t mean that’s the be-all, end-all to this planned madness that drives him. He’s already been contacted by the swim coaches from Kentucky, Auburn, Harvard, Princeton, Duke, USC, Virginia Tech, Florida, Arizona, and of course, his top choice, the University of Michigan.
“I was eligible to be contacted by colleges at 12:00 a.m. on September 1 (2014). At 12:01 a.m. I got an email from Kentucky and ten minutes later, from Michigan,” Jones said.
In October, Jones was invited by USA Swimming to its National Select Camp in Colorado Springs after he finished a year of competition as the top-ranked 16-and under male swimmer in the 400-meter IM in the United States. He attended that camp with his Cape Cod Swim Club coach Ron Zuwallack, whom Jones credits as one of the key people in his life.
But it’s not just the potential for becoming an Olympian or a Michigan Wolverine that drives Jones forward. The oldest of five boys to Stacy and Lori Jones, the 17-year-old Wunderkind’s heart is set on majoring in Actuarial Science or, the “discipline that applies mathematical and statistical methods to assess risk in insurance, finance and other industries.” Michigan is one of the few schools that offers that course of study.
It’s 7:45 pm on a Monday night.
In between push-ups and crunches and bands, sweat pouring from his brow after a long day of miles of swimming before school, studying and practicing, perhaps, his beloved clarinet, Jones’ agile frame is a portrait of constant movement and electrified purpose. While he pushes his muscles to strengthen, his nimble mind is crunching numbers. Like so many tiny, interlocking wheels and cogs spinning in cerebral unison, all of the amiable young man’s synapses are firing in an electrified fusion of focus.
This summer, Jarrett Jones will head off to the Olympic Trials in Colorado with a shot at making Team USA.
Photo courtesy of Stacey Vendetti
The difference between success and failure may be as slim as one tenth of one second.
Jones knows this. He embraces the idea. It drives him to succeed. He surrounds himself with the trappings of success, not chrome spinners or the latest overpriced version of Beats or how to cop a 12-pack of Pabst or what parking lot to go hang out in.
“Everybody has that dream when they’re a little kid,” Jones said. “But once I realized – when they released the cut times to qualify last September and my best time was only one second off the cut — I kind of realized this is really doable.”
─ Capecod.com Sports Editor Sean Walsh’s column One On One appears weekly at Capecod.com Sports. His email is [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm
About CapeCod.com NewsCenter
