Schuyler Bailar thought he would have to choose between swimming in college and embracing his true identity. He didn't.

Becca Yost is in her first year as a graduate assistant coach with the Frostburg State University men’s and women’s swimming teams in Maryland. Yost graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the spring with a bachelor’s degree in business management and entrepreneurship and was the operations intern at Virginia Amateur Sports.

Michael Crinion, a senior at Albion College, grew up playing goalkeeper in soccer. So in spring 2013, when he heard the men’s swimming and diving team was looking for divers, he thought he would be a natural: Goalkeeping, after all, involves diving.

When Bev Ball’s friends join the 85-year-old swim coach at a restaurant in Abilene, Texas, they know what to expect: She will run into someone she’s gotten to know – or coached – over six decades spent by the local pools.

The wedding rehearsal was supposed to start at 6:30 p.m. one Friday in September. But the minutes ticked toward the bottom of the hour, then away from it again. Bridesmaids checked the time on their phones. Groomsmen glanced at their watches. Where, they all wondered, was the officiant?

Mike Kroll started Manchester University’s swimming and diving program a year ago after a decade of finding success as a coach and swimmer. With spastic cerebral palsy, Kroll’s goal as a swimmer wasn’t to win a race but to make himself better and meet his personal goals every day.

Former North Dakota swimmer Dan Jacobson pushes his limits to help feed Burmese refugees along the war-ridden Thai-Burma border.

A longtime actor decides he has grown weary of Hollywood’s traps and trappings and retires to spend life by the pool. That’s how the narrative typically ends. But David Andriole’s story isn’t over, and the pool in question isn’t a sun-drenched oasis on the West Coast.