Celebrating the power of possibility.
I'm David Starwater and I believe anything is possible.
Welcome to Anything is Possible. I'm Hal Oren Hilton Hill.
Back with more great stories about great people whose lives prove that anything is possible.
This is Davis Starwater. Thank you for being here today.
I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
You start swimming at the age of four.
What happened that just drew you to the water?
Well, actually it was maybe a little later than that and I wasn't necessarily initially drawn to the water.
I was fearful of the water and I remember being fearful of the water.
But kind of as soon as it clicked, I recognized that it was something that was just deeply embedded in my personhood.
That I had this love for the water. There was a freedom that was associated, weightlessness,
just ability to kind of scratch your curiosity and explore.
I've always loved it and I don't swim as much now, hardly as I used to,
but I like to just get in and without swimming laps, just sometimes just get in and float and be underwater and block the noise out.
So you fall in love with the water. I mean, from the swimmers that I've met and known,
you have to at some point just relax and enjoy being in the water, that whole experience.
But did you see yourself taking off?
And was it a function of you just being good and having great technique,
or did the passion cause you to spend so much time in the water that you developed technique?
You know, I think there's a number of things on that.
I think when you talk about being a technician, that's something you work your entire career at being, regardless of what career you're in.
And so even when I retired from the sport at age 28, I was still watching film and making tweaks.
And so I think it was more about just this, I knew at a very young age I had a real drive.
You know, I had a real competitive energy. I hated to lose.
Where'd that come from? Do you know?
Yeah, you know, honestly, and I haven't talked about this very much,
but I think there was actually a bit of a shift in my personality at the age of nine,
where I had a really serious hospitalization in battle with childhood epilepsy.
And I had, in different occasions, I, or in a separate occasion, I actually had a seizure on the pool deck.
And so I was treated as an adolescent, or pre-adolescence. I actually grew out of it in adolescence and have been seizure free for a long time.
But there was something about that early blip of adversity.
I don't try to overstate it as, you know, I did not have epilepsy as bad as a lot of young people.
And there's also other issues that are serious too.
But there was something about that blip of adversity there that's sort of galvanized and hardened.
A little bit of an edge, not an angry one, but an edge, like a desire.
And what you say edge was, did that, did that, did it trigger this notion that you were not going to let something stop you?
Because you feared, okay, here's something in my life that could just shut everything down.
You know, I think it instilled a rooting of faith.
I think it also instilled some gratitude and fearlessness.
And I don't think I was necessarily ever like, you know, nothing can stop me because, you know, I always had, you know, some self-doubt and things like that.
But I was driven and focused and serious.
Now, like, I think people that know me know that I have like a pretty odd personality, peculiar.
I wouldn't say I'm a funny guy, but I'd probably do some funny things.
But man, when the lights would go on or when it was time to train and practice was going on, I was the most serious guy in the world.
There wasn't any from a young age.
Like, you know, it was game time all the time.
So you started winning and you won a lot.
What are some of the highlights?
You know, in high school, I was the junior national record holder and won junior nationals.
That was cool.
You know, one of my fondest memories was winning a team state championship at Webb my senior year.
I thought that was really cool.
And then, you know, as a collegian, winning an NCAA title is really a cool thing.
That's big.
You know, I mean, I've set some records.
I've held an individual American record that was big.
I mean, obviously, you know, the opportunity to represent Team USA all the way up to 2012 is a member of the Olympic team and, you know, nothing, you know, that's the ACME, obviously.
But that memory is not as bright as some of the other ones that had to do with my teammates, my friends, my family, you know.
I remember one of my first individual title looking up and seeing my dad, you know.
Like those are things you really don't forget.
You forget great performances that you thought you never would.
You don't forget like some of the sentimental things.
Possibility powered by Covenant Health, Home Federal, and the Knoxville News Sentinel.
One of the things that stands out for me is the stroke that you're best at.
So, yeah, my best stroke was Butterfly.
It was my favorite one to do.
And I don't remember learning it, but I have always known it.
Right.
I just have always had the aptitude for it.
And, you know, oddly enough, in 2008, I was one of the top three or four ranked 200-meter butterflies in the world, and I missed the Olympic team by one spot.
And when that happened, you know, I really reinvested in some other strokes and some other skills.
And ultimately, the thing that I was always the best at wasn't what I made the Olympic team in 2012 in, which was the 200-meter freestyle as a part of the relay.
And so, you know, there's kind of ironies in sports and in life that sometimes, you know, your greatest accomplishment might not be your best performance.
You do make the Olympic team, though.
And you do win a gold medal.
Walk me through that.
You know, so I think what I've always found interesting is that, you know, after one of these sort of journeys that have an apex, especially in sports, when you sit down and talk to somebody, that moment, again, is not as bright as, like, the part that led up to it.
And what led up to that was one of the most interesting and fulfilling four years of my life, because in 2008, I would have meddled in Beijing, but I was sitting at home on the couch because I got third at the Olympic trials and they take two.
And one American was Michael Phelps and the other was a guy that was just better on that day.
And so, you know, I...
How did that feel, was that deflationary, that hit hard?
It was terrible, especially as a competitor.
Yeah, and I had wrapped up so much in my life and identity in that, you know, making the Beijing Olympic team.
And, you know, so I came home and, you know, moved back from Ann Arbor.
I went to University of Michigan and, you know, I'd spent that previous four years training, you know, Ann Arbor at Michigan.
My training partner was Michael Phelps, among others, and came back to Knoxville.
And at that time, Matt Kredige was coaching only the Lady Vols, the women's team.
And so, I asked him, like, you know, I got a little bit of time on some of my contracts.
Can I train with you guys?
And Matt took me on a train with an all women's team at UT and just really dedicated myself to one, you know, realigning spiritually, you know, in my faith.
And also, you know, trying to develop new skills, learn new techniques, pick up a new event, which is, you know, kind of how I picked up the 200 Free.
And I ended up making the World Championship team, which was in Rome that year in 2009.
And then I had also was applying to grad school.
So I applied to the University of Oxford, which my dad kind of encouraged me to do, and got in to Oxford.
And so I thought I was walking away from the sport, so I moved to England, completed my master's degree in my dissertation in a year, and came back to, you know, came back here after I had graduated and decided that I wanted to make one more run at it and do it in a different way.
And so moved to Charlotte and trained with a professional team there and then ultimately was fortunate enough to make the 2012 Olympic team as part of our relay.
And that's even a kind of a longer story into how that happened.
The, you know, the short story is, you know, like, it's just this confluence of decisions and good fortune and God that led up to this improbable moment in my life.
And that improbable moment was kind of blurry, you know, like it just was like it was, you know, because you're focused on on what you're there to do. And it's just any other race, you know, really it is.
I mean, it's a bigger venue, but I just think about like all the all the incredible people and relationships and chances people took on me, you know, between 2008 and 2012.
To bring you to that moment.
That defined something that created something that has meaningfully and positively impacted my life.
But you also had great loss in the middle of that whole sweep, your mom.
So that was right after the Olympics. So we lost my mom in December of 2012, unexpectedly.
And, you know, at that time, I wasn't sure whether I was going to continue swimming for at least for a short period of time, or, you know, kind of hang it up and do the next thing.
And it wasn't necessarily just because of that, but it had had a lot to do with it.
My mom had such a uncanny and unbelievable gift to speak into an athlete, a competitor, a warrior's heart.
Give me an example.
Well, one, so I would say two things. The first I would say, you know, stealing a me, but, you know, a competitor was something that she was really good at.
And so, you know, we would always talk about, you know, what are the components of someone that wants to be great?
And the second thing was the head, the heart, the work ethic, and the faith, not necessarily in that order.
But you got to be not just smart, but you got to be level, and you got to be focused, you know.
You got to be tough, you got to believe, and you just got to work your tail off.
And she was encouraging that she was speaking this into your life as you're on this journey.
So I would imagine that's fuel for you and to have that voice not be there directly, because I'm sure her voice stays with you to this day, but to not have it there directly.
I bet you that's major.
You know, it's a huge loss. I mean, she, in a lot of ways, had some prophetic gifting.
And...
Did she prophesied your gold medal?
No, not in that sense, but just, I mean, more in the ability to just speak into certain situations in a way that you needed to hear it.
I love it.
You know, and I think, looking back on it, there were times in my career where, like, you know, I would be, you know, down and out or losing hope,
or, you know, kind of, you know, unsure what was going on, and, you know, she would always have kind of the right thing to say, you know, and usually it was about being tough.
You know, what's interesting is the way you said that, she had a way of speaking into your life the way you needed to hear it.
And that's a, I mean, a great mom or a great coach, right?
They figured that out.
Yeah, and then that's the most interesting thing to me about, you know, team dynamics and athletics, but also, you know, team dynamics in a corporate or business setting.
Yeah, you're a CEO of a company now, so you probably...
But, you know, especially, like, one of my, my favorite sports football and my favorite venues college football, and, like, that's a lot of dudes.
Right.
And they're all doing different things.
Like, they all, there's a bunch, everyone's a different position, and then they've all got different egos and different, you know, subcultures.
It's just, it's amazing to me to watch great football coaches put a team together with, you know, so many different walks of life backgrounds.
You know, I think that, you know, to your point, great coaches do that, and I think great leaders do that.
Talk about your family and your business life after, because your life is brimming with all sorts of new possibilities.
Yeah, so, you know, I...
I've always loved just following, you know, stories about entrepreneurs, and, you know, I just think the idea of the American dream of the blank canvas, you know, or just the, you know, the opportunity to wield your creativity, you know, makes this country an awesome place to live.
But, you know, after the Olympics, I did the best thing I've ever done, which is marry my wife, Brittany, who's the face of the family.
You know, I'm not out front anymore, but she's a, you know, exceedingly talented, you know, professional hard worker, been through a lot, really a survivor.
And, but more than anything, she's just the best wife, and she's the best mom to Little Davis and Claire Rose.
And so, we've been really blessed, and I'm really proud of her, and just, you know, not only not just for the professional that she is, but mainly for the mother that she is, and the blessing that, you know, I've had to watch her career play out.
Yeah, she was a, she was an all-American swimmer as well, you know, so we share a lot of common background and things like that.
But, yeah, so, you know, after, I did that, that was good.
And then, yeah, appreciated.
And then, in 2018, started the company that I currently have, which is called Safe Splash Swim School.
Well, it's actually, it's a franchise concept, but we own the development rights to Safe Splash Swim School.
And so, we go into in-line retail strip centers, and we literally go in there and dig the floor up, and put an in-water warm teaching pool for, you know, mainly children.
We do, we do all levels, but, you know, really, people ask, like, what's your average client age?
I say, well, about three.
So, you know, really, it's, for that, and it's really taken off. We've got two locations in Nashville, one in Nashville, one in Franklin, and then we're about to open up a fourth location in Greenville, South Carolina.
So, it's just really been a cool thing to be able to kind of centralize the commodity that people need, which is swim lessons and make it easy to do, you know, with an app and, you know, highly trained instructors.
So, we've got probably 80 to 100 employees, depending on the time of year.
And it's just, you know, it's been a real blessing. You know, it was a hard lift, because, you know, we really got open, like, right as COVID was getting going.
And we, obviously, there were a lot of restrictions in place, but, you know, we were able to keep our team together and, well, the storm, like, a lot of businesses had to, and, you know, came out better on the, forward on the other side.
Seems like that toughness that your mother helped to develop and speak into comes in handy as an entrepreneur and as a CEO.
And I think your life is a shining example of possibility. Like, you can get focused on something, you can achieve great things, you can be going in a direction and God can take it and do it a different way and do it better.
And I think stories like yours remind me and remind everybody that just about anything is possible.
Thank you for being here to share your story.
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. I've been blessed and I'm really happy to be here in this community and to be able to impact the business community and, you know, the aquatics community in a positive way.
And I just, you know, hopeful that the best is yet to come.
The best is yet to come. Thank you for being here.
Thank you.