All boys. All boarding. Grades 9-12.
Olympic Swimmer Davis Tarwater Speaks to Members of Swim Teams
After years of trying to fulfill his dream of making the Olympics, Davis Tarwater wanted to tell others his story about how he persevered and “stayed golden.”
“We can always choose to be optimistic. We can always choose to invest in ourselves. We can choose to stay golden,” said Tarwater.
Tarwater spoke to members of the Woodberry Forest and Norfolk Academy swimming teams in the Brown Lecture Hall on Woodberry’s campus on Friday night. The two teams engaged in a training session and a swim meet the following day.
Tarwater told the swimmers that defining success by more than just a result can help them achieve their goals in and out of the pool.
Tarwater was a natural-born swimmer who swam at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. At the age of 18, he was invited to his first Olympics trials, but failed to qualify for a spot on the American Olympic team.
As Tarwater continued to train, his success grew and grew, but he still failed to qualify for the Olympics, despite several more Olympic Trial invites. He attributed this to the sheer dominance of Michael Phelps, and the way his own identity became intertwined with his results in the trials.
Tarwater then took a leave of absence from the sport and realized that he needed to have more fun in the pool. He attended graduate school at the University of Oxford in an attempt to redefine himself.
“I had to get my identity unraveled from swimming,” said Tarwater, who urged the students to not bind their identities so tightly to results and accomplishments.
He then came back to the sport, swam different strokes, and didn’t define his success by results, which he thinks had previously held him back.
Things would change when Michael Phelps came to Ann Arbor to help Tarwater and the Michigan team train. Tarwater noted that training with the best swimmer in the United States at that time was key to his development as a swimmer and a competitor.
Tarwater would get invited to another Olympic trials and would qualify for the 2012 Olympics after Phelps withdrew from the 200 meter freestyle event, landing Tarwater a spot on the freestyle relay team. Tarwater would go on to win the gold medal after swimming for the United States in the preliminary heat of the relay race.
However, that medal was not as important to Tarwater as the fact that he was able to adapt and redefine himself in order to meet his goals.
Tarwater now works in the consulting business and is an entrepreneur. He travels around the country sharing his story, and urging others to redefine what they consider success to be.
By Crawford Humphreys '18
Crawford Humphreys ’18 is a sixth former from Charlottesville, VA. He wrote this article as part of Woodberry’s Journalism course. Crawford is also the co-chairman of WFSPN, Woodberry’s student-run broadcasting network.
Woodberry Forest School is an exceptional private school community for high school boys in grades nine through twelve. It is one of the top boarding schools in the United States and one of the only all-boys, all-boarding schools in the country.
Explore & Resources
Woodberry Forest admits students of any race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, and national or ethnic origin to all of the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic or other school-administered programs. The school is authorized under federal law to enroll nonimmigrant students.