Braylon O’Leary, right, celebrates after beating his father, Daily Journal sports editor Ryan O’Leary, in their 50-yard freestyle race last week.
Chris Williams | For the Daily Journal
My father will be the first to admit that he wasn’t exactly the highest athletic bar to clear.
When a group of New England Patriots players came to Harwich High School in 1986 to play in a charity basketball exhibition against the local teachers and first responders, my dad was quite literally introduced to the crowd as Dan “Can’t Shoot it in the Ocean” O’Leary.
When he was inexplicably fouled with the game on the line in the closing seconds, he actually called me out of the stands to shoot his free throws for him.
I was in sixth grade at the time, and by then I had long been able to beat him one on one. So having me shoot for him was somehow his best recourse — even though time went on to prove that I can’t really put it in the ocean either.
(I sank both of my free throws that afternoon, though, and beat the Pats like the Chicago Bears had in the Super Bowl a couple of months earlier.)
It never occurred to me back then that the day would come when I’d have children of my own and they’d be able to enjoy humbling their father at whatever the sporting feat might be. The idea never really entered my mind at all until the last year or so, when my kids started seeing some success in the swimming pool.
When our oldest son Braylon began competing in 2019, my wife and I were tickled pink anytime he didn’t finish last. Eventually, he got out of the basement and got decent. Then, over the past year or so, he started getting more than decent pretty quickly.
Decent relative to his age group, anyway; Braylon qualified for the state meet in the breaststroke this summer. Yet and still, as his 12th birthday came and went in July, I was still able to get the better of our eldest son in freestyle races at our neighborhood pool — but they were getting far too close for comfort.
Mind you, I have never swam competitively; though the sport is big in Indiana, it is most definitely not in Massachusetts, and so outlets for me to do so as a child were limited. Still, I grew up trying to emulate Olympic swimmers in our backyard pool, and I’d had enough lessons in my youth to at least be passable. And so, armed with a decent size and strength advantage, I’ve been able to hold off our better-trained sons for the time being.
But I could sense that time was nearing its end, especially with Braylon. When I pitched the idea of a 50-yard freestyle showdown to the Franklin Regional Swim Team coaching staff a month or two ago, they gave me a pretty honest assessment: “You’d better race him before December.”
In the weeks that followed, I became pretty sure I didn’t even have that long. So I decided it was during fall break or never.
As race day drew nigh, I started doing a little bit more to keep Father Time at bay. When I had to drive Braylon to Franklin for early-morning practices, I knocked out a few laps in the adult swim lanes a couple of times just to see where I stood. I shaved myself down as if preparing for a high school sectional. Former Franklin star Cade Oliver, who swam in the 2021 Olympic trials, offered to let me borrow his tech suit.
Let’s get it on, I thought to myself.
Suited and hairless, I started on a roughly even footing with our 12-year-old son — with the exception of the 10 or 15 excess pounds currently languishing around my midsection, anyway. And I actually got the better of him coming off of the block, giving myself almost a full body length lead as we both came up and got into our stroke.
But that lead gradually evaporated, with Braylon creeping up on me as we neared the 25-yard mark. We both went into our flip turns — and while I knew I’d be at some sort of disadvantage on that portion, I did not expect that I’d turn a little too soon and nearly miss the wall completely.
Whoops. So much for a good push.
Next thing I know, I’m looking to my right and seeing Braylon’s legs even with my head. Crap. Time to dig deep.
But then, there it was — the discussion between the mind and the body that tends to become more and more of a one-sided argument as we get older …
My mind: Kick it into high gear! You can still run this little punk down.
My body: Did you forget? We don’t have that gear anymore, buddy. You’re cooked.
By the time we got to the final 10 yards, I had resigned myself to my fate. I wound up hitting the wall in 29.13 seconds — and while I do think I could have gone as much as a second faster had I not bricked the turn so badly, there’s no way I was going to catch Braylon (27.62) either way.
He might not have been faster than me a few months ago, but he most definitely is now. And at age 48, I’m probably not going to be improving anytime soon.
I can still take solace in the fact that our 10-year-old, Landon, can’t beat me. Yet. But the clock is ticking on that one, too — and there’s no hitting the pause button.
Our kids are bound to overtake us all at some point, and there ain’t nothing any of us can do about it. Time is undefeated.
As a dad, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Ryan O’Leary is the sports editor for the Daily Journal. He will periodically be traveling around Johnson County taking on various physical challenges, some of which will make him look more absurd than others. He can be reached at [email protected].
