Troy Liu turns deep pain into extra motivation for Division 2 state championship swim meet

It was a typical Friday night in November, the week before Thanksgiving.

The official start of swimming practice at Grosse Pointe South was three days away, but Troy Liu was already working hard because he wanted to be in good shape before the season began.

On this Friday night, Liu was waiting for Flynn MacKrell to arrive home from the University of Dayton, where he was a freshman.

The two were supposed to play Fortnite together, as they had done so many times before over the years.

“We were pretty close,” Liu said. “We swam with each other my whole life, pretty much. We hung out a lot after school and through our own activities.”

After a while Liu, grew concerned when MacKrell didn’t call. Eventually, a friend called with the devastating news: MacKrell had been killed in a car accident earlier that night.

It was as if someone took a baseball bat and slammed it into Liu’s stomach.

“It hurt me in the deepest part of my emotions," Liu said. "Flynn, he helped me a lot through my swimming career, and just being there to support me and help me train and be a better person in general.”

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In a way, Liu believes he lost much more than a friend in that car accident.

“Yeah, he was a great role model,” he said. “He taught me a lot of things. And introduced to me a lot of new ways and opened the world to me.

“I keep him in my memory and it’s one of my motivations, definitely, right now.”

As Liu prepares to compete at this weekend’s Division 2 state championship meet at Eastern Michigan, he has enough motivation to repeat in the 100-yard free style state champion, and hopes to double in the 50 free as well.

He is seeded first in both events.

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Liu, who has not chosen a college yet, began swimming years ago mainly as a way to keep up with his older sister, Renee.

“I just started swimming because it was fun, and it was in the summertime, and I kept up with it,” he said.

Following his big sister was a common routine for Liu and, believe it or not, his big sister enjoyed having him around.

“He tagged along more in swimming,” Renee, a state championship swimmer and All-American at Johns Hopkins, said. “All of the older kids on the team loved Troy. He was always the cute little brother I brought along. Then, obviously, he started to really enjoy it himself.”

Although swimming, for the most part, is an individual sport, there were other aspects of the sport in Grosse Pointe that Liu enjoyed and kept him involved.

“I liked the team spirit, I liked the bonding, so I wanted to continue to do club,” he said. “I got to do it with my sister as well. I like to do things with her.”

Eventually Liu grew to be much more than Renee’s "cute little brother." He became a dedicated swimmer who began to assert himself in the pool and make his own name.

“Growing up, I always thought I had a ton of talent when I was younger,” Renee said. “I always told my parents I felt Troy would take a little bit of time, but he was going to be really good. Once he started getting tall, I knew he was going to reach his full potential.”

Liu is now 6 feet 2, but potential is a funny word. Sometimes, kids with seemingly all of the potential in the world appear to peak too early or lose interest, never quite living up to expectations.

South coach John Fodell figured out years ago Liu, who won state age group titles as a youngster, could become a standout swimmer, but nothing was guaranteed.

“There are always a couple of them who could be really good, but it’s always the next couple of steps that’s really hard to take,” Fodell said. “He had potential and as he started taking those steps, you could see he was pretty good.”

Despite what his daughter said about her little brother, their father, Roland, thought Renee was being too optimistic.

Their parents were pleased Troy was a good student, like Renee, but did not see him winning state championships.

“She’s always taking care of this little fella,” Roland said. “We were not expecting this. He’s the youngest in his class every year. He’s changing day-by-day on the positive side.”

As they looked back on last year’s championship meet, Fodell and Liu firmly believe Liu should, or at least could, have won the 50 title as well.

“He got caught on the breakout in the 50,” Fodell said. “He just had to get off a little quicker. You have to control the angle so you break out of the water at the perfect spot.”

The loss in the 50 was difficult for Liu to accept. He finished fourth, 13 hundreths of a second behind the winner.

“I was a little bit surprised,” he said. “I was seeded first and I was feeling confident. That one little slip up cost me that one. I paid for my 50, my mistake.

“After that mistake, I learned from that for my 100. I made sure I brought that out early.”

Liu has a regular routine he follows at meets. After the 50, he does a cooldown and then speaks to Fodell about how he did in the 50, and what needs to change for the 100.

Fodell’s advice was simple and ended with a question.

“We knew he could it, he had the capability of it,” Fodell said. “Get up, control the race from the start, have good breakouts and, are you going to let them pass you?

“He didn’t let them pass him.”

Nobody passed and he hung on to win the state championship.

“That was my mindset,” Liu said. “I wasn’t going to let it happen. I felt accomplished. It felt like I proved myself in general. I didn’t want to lose that one. I felt good for myself. I’m glad I could do something individual.”

Now, a year later, Liu has extra motivation to get it done again.

Fodell understands why Liu took MacKrell’s death so personally.

“He was one of Troy’s boys,” Fodell said. “There’s a big thing that South swimming does so well. They go to war together, they battle together. It’s kind of a family.”

And MacKrell was an integral part of that family.

“He was a great kid,” Fodell said. “He was happy-go-lucky, always had a smile on his face, great energy.

“Just a fun kid to be around, not a mean bone in his body. He was willing to do whatever you needed. He was the one who cheered people on, got people going.”

The South family lost another member early last year when Brian Fraser was one of the Michigan State students murdered in a campus shooting.

Liu is not supposed to be burying friends.

Liu was three years younger than Fraser but knew him, and Fraser was still a member of the South swimming family.

“I feel like all of these tragedies and events revolve around our team cultivated us,” Liu said, searching for a silver lining. “It helped us keep working hard and strive through.”

Now there is one more meet for Liu to strive through. It is another opportunity to show how MacKrell impacted his life as a swimmer and as a teammate.

“It definitely served as an inspiration to keep pushing forward for my senior year,” Liu said. “To be captain of the team and spread leadership and positivity through the team, because I wanted to honor his name and finish off my last year.

“People come and go, but this one definitely left a mark in me that I won’t forget.”

Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him @mickmccabe1. Order his book, “Mick McCabe’s Golden Yearbook: 50 Great Years of Michigan’s Best High School Players, Teams & Memories,” now at McCabe.PictorialBook.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Troy Liu turns deep pain into motivation for D-2 state title swim meet