BY
» mikemazzoni
Looking back to my sophomore year I remember the new kid. He had a mess of blonde hair, was decently tall and skinny. In Biology, he sat one row behind me and four rows to the right. He talked only to answer when his name was read during roll, “Levi Mische” my teacher would call, scanning the room. A quick “Here” was always heard from Levi’s desk in a kind of twangy voice that stood out from the rest of the class. During labs we would work together and the few times he would talk you could count on something funny. He was hilarious.. He cussed like nobody I’d ever met, and he liked to fish. That spring when a group of us went fishing, Levi would come too; while waiting for bites his twangy jokes made us laugh and probably scared all the fish away. I had heard about how good Levi was at swimming, I just didn’t know what exactly that meant. I couldn’t believe that the kid who wore a cut-off sleeveless t-shirt and baggy jeans when we went fishing could be that good. I couldn’t imagine his country twang fitting in with the voices of the other, state-winning varsity swimmers. I guess I couldn’t have known what exactly a good swimmer would look like, but in my mind Levi didn’t look like one. During my first practice, I saw just how wrong I had been. As I watched him swim his lean bone-and-muscle frame slipped through the pool like a torpedo: the water seamlessly parting around his head and arms while his two propellers left the water foaming behind him as they churned beneath the surface. He seemed so unnaturally fast in the water that first day I had to check him for webbed toes, glancing at his feet as he walked past our lane. I was a believer; the Basehor boy was one freak of a swimmer. As an infant no one believed Levi would ever be the incredible swimmer he is today. “When he was little, if you’d give him a bath and get his head wet, he would just scream”, Kirk Mische, Levi’s dad said with a laugh. “He didn’t want water on his face”, Levi’s mom, Annika Mische said. “He’d scream and yell in the bathtub; he hated it.” Seemingly sensitive to water, Kirk doubted Levi would ever swim, even recreationally. But growing older the toddler slowly shed his touchiness, splashing around in the family’s pool at their house in Basehor. It was summer and Levi was eight; time for swim lessons. “In the classes it was like kids would take one level each year”, Kirk said. “Levi went through five the first year, the first summer, and then he did the next five the next summer. And that was as far as he could go.” Completing each level at an abnormally fast pace, Levi finished the class with kids that were considerably older than he was, at the time only 10. With the next level of classes being lifesaving and requiring a minimum age of 15, Levi would have to wait five years if he wanted to take part in organized swimming in the Basehor area. “So we signed him up for the Kansas City Blazers Swim Team. I told him we would try it and just see if he would like it and he told me ‘well I’m not going to like it; I don’t like to swim,’ ” Annika remembers of Levi’s reluctance to continue swimming. “I just told him no, that we would try it. So we took him in and he loved it; he’s been in the pool ever since, almost everyday.” “I don’t remember that,” Levi shrugs. “I was probably just being stupid.” Levi’s first competitive test of determination would come later that year while he was still only 10. Levi never forgot the race. “During one race I was beating the heck out of these kids in the butterfly; I was beating them by like, a whole pool length. The judge isn’t supposed to go from lane to lane but he came and stood right over my lane and on the last lap he raised his hand and disqualified me for flutter kicking, which I know I didn’t do.” Kirk smiles, the day still clear in his memory. “I remember when we got back to the hotel that night Levi was
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Senior Levi Mische overcomes childhood fear of water to become state champion
just pissed. So the next day he came back for the finals and smoked everyone in the freestyle. And that was when he was only 10.” Most fourth graders don’t wake their parents up before dawn unless they are having a nightmare. Every morning during the summer Levi would wake his dad up before the sun began to rise. It wasn’t out of fear that he woke up so early, it was out of dedication. From his beginning at age 10, Levi was up and ready to swim at 4:30 a.m. almost every summer morning. “I never made him get up in the mornings,” Kirk recalls. If he was going to go to practice it was because he wanted to.” Until Levi was old enough to drive he would wake his dad up and the two would take the 20 minute highway commute from their house in Basehor to his practices in Kansas City where he would swim between two and three hours every practice. There was no nightmare, but it was clear that Levi was dreaming big. “I always just wanted to be good at swimming; there really never has been a goal, just to try my hardest to get better.” Levi’s main motivation came from losing. “When you’re really good you still have to work really hard to beat yourself, to stay on top. But when you lose, you work twice as hard and you think about that one loss the whole time until you come back and win.” Levi’s eighth grade year saw a start with his new swim team and coach. Mary Jo Klier and the Kansas City Swim Academy provided a program that not only offered a chance for Levi to hone his swimming skills, but also ended up being an opportunity to swim with high school swimmers that shared his level of competition. Though they were two or three years older than he was at the time, East swimmers John Cook, Brandon Barnds and Luke Tanner befriended the younger Levi, taking him under their wing. “Even in eighth grade they were really nice to him,” Kirk said of Levi’s new friends and teammates. “They didn’t treat him like, ‘oh you dumb middle school kid, get out of here,’ they treated him like, ‘ok you’re a decent kid and you’re a good swimmer so come on’.” The older boys became like mentors as Levi excelled and his times became more and more competitive with those of the high school boys two or three years older than him. “Luke, Barnds and Cook all pushed me to get better,” Levi recalls of the East swimmers. “They knew I hated losing to them so they’d keep telling me to keep up during workout sets, to try my hardest.” Finishing his eighth grade year, Levi was preparing to enter Basehor High School, one with no swimming programs. “I tried to get him on a team out there near Basehor, I tried and tried with the athletic directors”, Kirk remembers. “I tried to get him on Bonner’s team and on Piper’s team. They were just like, ‘Can’t he play something else? Can’t he do some other sport?’ And I told them ‘Well I’m sure he could but I don’t think he chooses to’.” It was around that time, when Levi started swimming with KCSA and the boys from East, that Levi suggested taking his skill to East’s team. “He’d say, ‘I don’t understand why I can’t swim at East, I don’t understand why I can’t go to school at East,’ ” Annika says, deepening her voice to imitate Levi’s nagging. “We knew that if Levi was going to swim in high school we were going to have to move somewhere.” Levi’s parents were also concerned about getting Levi and his younger sister, Lexi, a high-quality education. “Academically Basehor Linwood isn’t what East is”, Annika remembers of their former school system. Both of Levi’s older brothers, Jeremy 28, and Jake 25, graduated from Basehor years before Levi; neither Kirk nor Annika found the school met their high expectations. “We wanted a better education for Levi and Lexi, and Levi
SPORTS
HYDROPHOBIA to HYDROMANIA
SENIOR Levi Mische was named swimmer of the meet at the state championships. He was a part of a 200 yard medley relay team that broke the state record. »photo by annaleek
wanted to swim so East was just a good fit,” Annika recalls. “The actual move from Basehor wasn’t that bad” Levi remembers. Coming from Basehor High School with a total student body numbering a little over 400 students, East seemed massive. “The sophomore class I came into at East was bigger than all the kids that went to Basehor combined. I think my freshman class was considered one of the biggest ever there and I think we had 115 kids in our grade [in Basehor].” Coming to his first day of school, Levi didn’t know what to expect, he was just nervous. “It was weird coming to such a big school with people I didn’t know.” Levi says, then adds with a smile, “Bunch of Johnson County yuppies.” Levi’s friends on the swim team worked to help him fit into the new school. “When I started I didn’t know anybody but the swim team, so when I saw them in the halls they would introduce me to their friends. Other that I had to meet new friends, do everything over again.” In the pool Levi was working harder than he ever had, swimming two-a-days as his teammates pushed him to get faster. Knowing he was on a team that that had another shot at state, Levi wanted to make a difference. “I actually wanted to make a difference at state, not to just swim at state, but to be part of the reason the team won.” Levi said. Levi’s achievements can be measured a number of ways. His success is seen in his swimming times, dropping two seconds in the 50 freestyle and four seconds in the 100 freestyle, his two best events. His two state rings remind him everyday of the dedication and effort he has put into East’s team. “When you win that race, or something like state, you know that your work has paid off. And that goes for the whole team. That’s when you know you have succeeded.” Walking into his room, light is shattered across the walls by a pile of medals and ribbons sitting on his dresser, all of them first place. A bulging shoe box of swimming medals lays open on his bed. “I don’t have any regrets.” Levi says. “Winning three state championships with my friends, the ones that helped me get used to a new school…I wouldn’t have done it differently if I could.” Levi turns a medal over in his palm, letting it drop into the box of his life, a long history of swimming and determination to succeed. issue
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