Swimming's Wonder Boy

Her son credits her for much of his success. And his success has changed her life.

The granddaughter of a coal miner, Debbie Phelps was born in Westernport, Md., a flood-plagued, Allegany County railroad town situated at a bend in the North Branch of the Potomac River.

The second oldest of four children, she was a tomboy as a kid. She married her high school sweetheart, Fred Phelps, a strapping football player from an even smaller mill town up river. Both went off to college in West Virginia, then moved east to take jobs, she as a home economics teacher, he as a state policeman.

But over time, their marriage foundered. She was left with the kids, work and swimming. Amid the domestic turbulence, she says she was determined to provide stability for the children.

All three swam from an early age, and while Hilary, 26, was the first to compete successfully, and is now one of Michael's most ardent fans, it was Whitney, 24, who seemed destined for greatness.

Tall, broad-shouldered and strong, she swam the butterfly, and began to travel, win medals and make headlines.

But she developed serious back problems, which she kept to herself even as they worsened. Her parents had separated, she found solace in the water, and she was determined to make the 1996 Olympics.

At the trials in Indianapolis that year, in front of her anxious family, she failed to make the team.

"To this day," her mother says, "we'll talk, and she'll say, 'How good could I have been?' "

Whitney Phelps now lives with her father, who has remarried, in Linthicum, Md., 20 miles from where her mother and brother live. In a recent interview, she said she loves and admires her brother. "He has this fire burning inside of him that keeps him going," she said.

But she doesn't intrude. "I kind of stand on the outside and look in," she said. She will attend a meet to watch him swim, but then "I like to go."

"I'm still angry about everything," she said. "It's still a touchy subject."

She no longer swims, even for pleasure. "I still want to be able to compete," she said. "But I can't. So I don't want to torture myself just going for a Sunday swim. I'm probably never going to swim, ever again."

Fred Phelps said his daughter's fate was a tragedy. He, too, suffered athletic disappointment as a young athlete, but not in the sport of swimming.

His love was football.

Fred Phelps, 53, who retired from the Maryland State police on Jan. 30 after 28 years on the force, was raised in tiny Luke, Md. His father died when he was 8, and his mother worked as a secretary. He grew up swimming in the nearby Savage River. "Organized swimming?" he says. "Nah, we never had it."

A robust figure at 6-2 and 230 pounds, he said he grew up tough and hard, hunting and fishing and playing sports. As a young man he worked on the labor gang at the paper mill, and, summers, as a bouncer in Atlantic City.

"My God, by the time I was 18 I was in more knockdown, dragouts," he said. "You grow up in a small community, buddy, you either take care of business or you get the [expletive] knocked out of you."