He’s 6-foot-1, and his dad thought he had a future in basketball. “Most African-American kids play basketball or football, and I started with basketball because my dad liked it at the time, so he pushed it for me,” he said.
But Lynch kept an eye on his sister’s swimming experience and went for that. “Neither of my parents are swimmers, so it wasn’t necessarily an obvious choice,” he said. But that kind of height thrives not just on a basketball court but also in the water, and once he dove in, it was all over.
He admits he’s “not a party animal,” and his introverted tendencies likely made the silence of the pool more appealing than the commotion of the basketball court. Unlike most swimmers, he doesn’t listen to pump-up music on headphones before he swims. “I’ve tried it,” he said, “but I’d rather be in my own head and my own state of mind.”