Morris Is Coming Into His Own

Things could hardly have gone worse last summer for swimmer Brennan Morris. Two stress fractures in his back laid him up for three months. He failed to qualify for a single final at the Olympic trials.

Two years after his family moved from rural Pennsylvania to Baltimore to permit him to train at the esteemed North Baltimore Aquatic Club, Morris, 18, seemed to be going nowhere.

But last fall he sat down with Bob Bowman, NBAC's new chief executive and Michael Phelps's longtime coach. Knowing Morris's promise, and seeing his frustration, Bowman invited Morris, then entering his senior year of high school, to move into Bowman's exclusive professional group.

So as Phelps, 24, returned to the pool after his eight-gold-medal performance at the Beijing Summer Games, Morris became his youngest training partner. At first daunted, Morris soon thrived. Less than a year after the switch, Morris enters the swimming world championships that begin in Rome on Sunday as the youngest male member of the U.S. team. He will compete in Saturday's 1,500-meter freestyle.

"It's been great," Morris said by phone from Indianapolis earlier this month, a day after securing his world-team slot by finishing second in the 1,500 free at the U.S. swimming championships. "There's a lot of motivation to come to the pool with great swimmers around and a great coach. I was really motivated to get to the top level."

Bowman's training group also included Katie Hoff, 20, who won three medals at the 2008 Summer Games. She, however, didn't intimidate Morris in the least. They had, after all, just taken a six-week vacation together to Costa Rica, where they went whitewater rafting and zip-lining. Morris would have escorted Hoff to her senior prom, except she didn't have one; like Morris, Hoff was home-schooled.

Morris and Hoff had gotten to know each other while swimming together under former NBAC coach Paul Yetter. They have been dating for more than a year, and Morris's satisfaction over his success at the U.S. championships was tempered by Hoff's disappointing week there.

Her failure to qualify for the world championship team was, perhaps, more stunning than Morris's slipping onto the squad on the last night of competition.

Morris said he hoped to hang out with Hoff in Rome -- after the championships.

"She's had a tough year, and she's done a great job handling it," Morris said. "I'm always there for her whenever she has a problem, just like she was there for me when she was doing great and I wasn't. I'll always be a shoulder to lean on if she needs one."

Phelps, who is something of a big brother to everyone at NBAC, also provides Morris and Hoff a comforting shoulder -- at least when he's not using his elbow to prod and tease both of them.

During a recent training session, Phelps chuckled at Morris's determination to match the number of push-ups Phelps had done during a drill. Morris, who is not only six years younger but also considerably slighter than Phelps, struggled mightily to equal Phelps's -- and even Hoff's -- output. Grinning mischievously, Phelps needled Morris about push-ups that wouldn't have met the Marine standard for proper execution.