This feature originally appeared in the Winter edition of the Cal Sports Quarterly. The Cal Athletics flagship magazine features long-form sports journalism at its finest and provides in-depth coverage of the scholar-athlete experience in Berkeley. Printed copies are mailed four times a year to Bear Backers who give annually at the Bear Club level (currently $600 or more). For more information on how you can receive a printed version of the Cal Sports Quarterly at home, send an email to calbearbackers@berkeley.edu or call (510) 642-2427.
Normally, Rachel Bootsma is a bundle of nerves before a big race. But in the final moments prior to the start of the 100-yard backstroke at the NCAA Championships last March in Greensboro, North Carolina, a different feeling enveloped her.
Her thoughts traced back through her journey to this pivotal moment and what it had taken to reach the race – the individual highs and lows, the family members, teammates and coaches who have provided support over the years and, most of all, her love of swimming. As a result, Bootsma approached the blocks with a sense of calm.
“Let's just do it,” she recalled thinking. “Let's go out there and see what happens. I'm swimming because I do love it. I really, truly believe that.”
As she prepared to push off the wall, Bootsma did so as the No. 2 seed with teammates Melanie Klaren and Elizabeth Pelton also in the water for the event. Once underway, Bootsma shot out quickly and reached the halfway point with a slight lead over Virginia's Courtney Bartholomew. She continued to stretch her advantage coming home and finished in a personal-best 50.01 seconds, winning by nearly a half a second and posting the No. 3 time in history in the event.
Bootsma, whose smile lit up the pool when she realized her accomplishment, remembers very little about the race itself. What comes to mind instead are the joy of her teammates cheering on the deck, the sight of her parents in the stands, realizing that Klaren had taken third and Pelton had tied for fifth, and the reaction she saw on the video board of coaches Teri McKeever and Kristen Cunnane.
While swimming may seem to be an individual sport to many observers – one person's ability to move quickly through the water – Bootsma knows that she wouldn't have reached the pinnacle of collegiate swimming without a strong group around her.
“There's no way I could have done it without the girls on deck, the people back home watching on their computers,” she said.
To truly understand Bootsma's perspective requires a look back at the previous three years, starting in the summer of 2012. Having just graduated high school in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, she earned a place on the U.S. Olympic team in the 100-meter back. While in London, she received a gold medal for her role in the 400 medley relay preliminaries and placed 11th in the 100 back individually.
Bootsma continued on her high as a freshman at Cal, winning the 100 back, taking second in the 100 butterfly and sixth in the 200 fly, and being a part of four top-5 relays at the 2013 NCAA meet.
“My freshman year was crazy, but it was really special,” Bootsma said. “I came off an excitement into another excitement.”
But repeating that success as a sophomore proved more difficult than she ever imagined. With the 2014 national meet scheduled for essentially her home pool in Minneapolis, Bootsma had a strong desire to perform well in front of family and friends.
The meet, though, did not go as planned for Bootsma or for Cal as a team. Bootsma finished 11th in the 100 back and wasn't able to score at all in either butterfly event. And though it placed third in the team standings, the Bears left the championships feeling as if they should have performed much better overall.
“I was really disappointed,” Bootsma said. “At that moment, do I really want to keep doing this?”
When she and her teammates returned to Spieker Aquatics Complex to begin spring practice, a clear shift began to take place. Bootsma assessed where she stood in her swimming career and, not long after, came to a definite realization: she absolutely loved the sport. But more than the emotion, she also learned to appreciate the relationships she had built with teammates, coaches, and friends and colleagues in the swimming community.
“I remember there were moments when I was in the pool looking around and seeing the sun and the California at the end of the pool and just thinking, 'how could I ever give this up?'” Bootsma said. “Yeah, I was still tired, but I was excited to get to work. I was excited to see my friends and push everyone. It was really important to me when I was falling to see who was there to back me up. It was my teammates and my coaches. It helped me see how much I meant to them and, in turn, how much they meant to me. That's what made last year so special because I have that really deep bond.”
Bootsma's transformation began to show over the summer of 2014. She won the 50 back at U.S. Nationals and qualified to swim in three events at the Pan Pacific Championships in Australia. She earned a third consecutive 100 back title at the Pac-12 meet. And in addition to her 100 back crown at NCAA's, she was a member of two victorious relays as Cal rolled to the 2015 team crown.
“My phone was blowing up,” Bootsma recalled. “It was fun to see all the support that I had, even people who I wouldn't consider as a main supporter, just reading a text and saying wow, they have played a big role in this.
“It definitely gave me a bigger appreciation for the sport,” Bootsma said. “Falling and not really knowing what I wanted and then realizing how much I did love the sport and how much it gave to me – not only all these accolades, but my teammates and the relationships I have and all the support throughout the athletic community – was something that I knew I couldn't ever give up, I didn't ever want to give up.”
Now a senior co-captain and on track to complete her degree in interdisciplinary studies in December 2016, Bootsma has inherited a leadership role for the Bears. It's another big year with the Olympics looming at the end of the summer and a number of swimmers having a very real chance of making the Olympic team for multiple countries.
But the focus now is on preparing for March and the NCAA Championships, and Bootsma knows all too well that it takes a total team effort. Over the course of her career, she's experienced championships and, to use her term, failures. Having rediscovered her devotion to swimming, she is cherishing these last few months as a Golden Bear and trying to provide the right perspective to her teammates.
“I think finally being able to show the world last year how good we actually were and could be was what was amazing about it,” Bootsma said of the 2015 season. “It was a total team effort from the first moment to the very end when we were carrying the trophy home. There was no moment where we could have done better. It's a cliché, but it was magical.”
