After The Whistle Special - Guest Paralympian Gold Medalist McKenzie Coan

all right so everyone welcome into a atw after the whistle special episode we are delighted to be joined today by mackenzie cohen a former loyola graduate and an olympian herself mackenzie thank you so much for taking the time to join jimmy and i here today yeah no thanks for having me i'm excited to be here with you guys yeah we're gonna dive into a lot of different topics today but uh first i just wanted to ask you right off the bat obviously you were a swimmer where did you really find like your passion and love for swimming yeah no great question so i'm from a really small town in georgia and when i was born um they didn't quite know what was going on with me so they ran a lot of tests and when i was 19 days old they diagnosed me with a condition um that causes brittle bones and so right off the bat i started physical therapy when i was literally just a couple months old and we were having to drive two hours one way to get to atlanta to go to those physical therapy appointments so i was about six months old and uh they recommended my parents to get me in the water and i started aqua therapy and as as young as i can remember it was probably like three or four and i was going to aqua therapy and i just fell in love with it it was like a freedom that i had truly never known before and you know at that time i didn't realize how big of a role that the water was gonna play in my life but just immediately even from then remembering how free i felt and you know just weightless in the water and i absolutely loved it yeah so that's interesting i did not realize that that was something that you were like born with so i like one of the questions i'm wondering is like when you eventually got like old enough to like you know start start knowing things right like we all said once we start knowing things in life like how did you feel like when when you had like this type of disease like obviously it had to make you feel some sort of way yeah yeah no definitely and i think um when you're born with something like my condition you really it's it's almost like having this extra growing pain that that you've got to kind of take on and deal with and into your younger years into your teenage years and your adult life and you know you really learn from early on that this thing it does not define you but it is definitely a part of you and it's something that you're gonna deal with for the rest of your life so i learned from early on that this was something i was gonna face head on and i had to try to make the best out of every situation i was put in so with my condition you know i break bones all the time well how am i going to deal with that when something comes up oh i broke a femur i broke my back or i broke my shoulder like am i going to sit here and wallow in it no i'm gonna figure out how to move forward and how to heal this quickly and and get on with my life so it really took my entire family and i to figure that out throughout my life and it's something that i think has absolutely made me stronger and i would definitely not be the person i am today without it for sure no it's great to hear that you keep like pushing forward i mean obviously when you're diagnosed with any disease but especially brittle bone disease disease excuse me when you're it's just unfortunate that like breaking bones is just something that happens and it's kind of like out of your control but i wanted to ask you like what kind of pushed you through your like initial diagnosis like what was your like initial reaction when you first like um we're diagnosed with this disease and then eventually like conquering it like like where do you find like the push like or the inspiration like that keeps you going every day knowing that you have to live with this yeah honestly it was my parents um so when i was diagnosed when i was 19 days old uh my parents were basically delivered a death sentence for me they were told that i would never sit crawl stand walk like i wouldn't do anything they were told to put me in the corner and leave me alone and that's how i was gonna live life and my my parents just weren't going to accept that they said that this child that is not going to happen like we will do everything we can to give her a great life like you guys are wrong and like my parents literally told me that that's what they told the doctors and walked out and i kind of loved that so we took that mentality into basically the rest of my life anything that i ever wanted to do my parents supported me and we kind of went into everything even swimming and i tried to play um like wheelchair tennis for a little while like i did track and field like all kinds of things that you know a lot of people tell my parents you're crazy for letting her do that like her bones break easily like what's wrong with you guys like the types of things that my parents were told that i found out later on when i could understand is just so crazy and disgusting to me but i go into everything in life with this attitude now of yes i understand the risk but i'm not going to sit on the sidelines and let my life pass me by so i i think that that's really been the driving force and it really all started with my parents no that's definitely a great attitude to have towards life i think that's something that we we can say for anybody like i mean obviously you have much harder struggle than we do but like you know like that is definitely a great way to go through life and say like hey i'm not gonna let this define me and obviously it's worked for you obviously you've done very well um you know you made it all the way to the olympics right like there's something to be said for that that's a great accomplishment in itself and not just get to the olympics you've won at the olympics you know there is something really be said for that and i think that's great advice that you're just you know giving us for life i mean i'm i love it honestly like it's very inspirational in my opinion so let's move on to like another chapter of your life obviously we were talking about your childhood and how you know you tried some different sports and then how you got into the water with the aqua therapy so you know i want you to think back to your time at loyola because obviously that's where we all went to college right yeah so what what is like your favorite memory from like your time at loyola um you know i mean it could be something small something big i mean anything what do you think and before uh mackenzie johnson i just want to mention i feel like whenever i'm walking around campus i always see members of the swim team i feel like they're always just hanging out oh yeah no they are everywhere i just feel like compared to other sports here i feel like the swim team has this very like tight-knit bond that like not a lot of sports like not the other ones like they don't have it as strongly tight knit as the sp swim team does i just feel like they like know each other so well i see them always like talking about whether it's swimming or something else i just feel like they're always anytime i think it's because there's so many of them that's why i mean i have no idea yeah i have no idea how many people are on a swim team like i i don't really know anything about like the sport of swimming like obviously i know how to swim but that doesn't really like equate to this at all but like i like how many people are actually on the swim team like i general question yeah you know that's a great question and it's actually so funny that you you brought this up because it's gotten bigger and bigger since i graduated i feel like such a dinosaur now but i like graduated back in 2018 and there were probably maybe like i don't know like 70 80 people on the team like upwards of that like throughout my time and now i think there's like a hundred so the team has grown quite a bit there's so much talent on it and it's really funny because i actually just ran into um so i i live in a building where i know a few other alumni from the swim team and then i ran into a current swimmer last night when i was on my way to dinner so i love that there's so many of them and like you i mean baltimore is like one of those cities it's like a small town so like you run into people all the time but it's always so nice and honestly it makes my heart so happy that you say that about the swimmers because it was like that when i was there on the swim team competing as an athlete it's just such a close like knit group of people and that's i mean you turn to each other to get through it swimming is one of those sports where you do it six days a week you're up for morning practice you have doubles you have lifts like it's so much so to surround yourself with friends who kind of understand that and are all going after the same common goal throughout the season is is a really special thing and it's a special bond so that makes me very happy to hear that you see that around campus and i just love all the swimmers they're amazing um but you know thinking back on my time at loyola you know i started back in 2014 2014. god that makes me feel so old um but i was a freshman in 2014 and you know coming all the way from georgia up to maryland i i was pretty nervous i remember i was sitting in my freshman orientation and they handed me a microphone and they were like where are you from and i go georgia and everybody goes silent in the arena and everyone's staring at me and they're like okay so i got the question of like what are you doing here why are you here quite a bit and you know i kind of liked that it was a little bit of uniqueness for me i guess that i wasn't unique enough you know rolling around campus in my pink wheelchair like or actually i should say racing through campus in my pink wheelchair um one of my favorite things it was always kind of funny lopo would see me and they'd be like we're gonna issue you a speeding ticket as i like roll by and stuff and i i always thought it was so funny but to be honest with you i have so many special memories from my time at loyola but one that sticks out in my mind so when i went to the rio 2016 games i actually took a month off of like the semester so i was coming into the semester a month late to like accommodate all like games and all the dates and everything so i literally came from rio back to baltimore and jumped into the semester a month late so everything was really crazy when i got back i did as much work with my professors as i could beforehand but i was still a little bit behind so i came back i was really stressed out you know it had been amazing games and kind of dealing with they call them the post olympic blues a little bit so it was kind of this question of okay you just went and won these gold medals like you have all the success but it was almost like what are you doing with your life now like just this array of emotions and i came back and father brown i love father brown so much he is one of my favorite people in in the entire world he arranged this event for me when i came back of getting you know all my friends together the swim team together the faculty together and we just had this huge celebration for myself and my um teammate and fellow alumna alyssa jalamas and it was amazing and it just kind of made coming back and dealing with all the stress and the pressure and everything so much easier to handle just having all that support and to know that i was you know i had so many amazing friends and was so loved at the school made a world of difference and that to me speaks volumes about what loyola is all about and it just it makes me happy every time i think about it so that's definitely one of my favorite loyola memories yeah that must be nice when you're away from home or baltimore even for a while you're in rio foreign country competing and then you come back and you see that people like are celebrating your time as an athlete and you're you still get that feeling that you're still loved by everyone that must be a very nice feeling to have and as an olympian obviously it's tough when you travel you're in the same place for a good amount of time and uh yeah to come home and just have that warm sense of like belonging that's just great but to stick with the topic of uh swimming uh i want to mention brian leffler it's leslie right yeah so he is the head coach of swimming at loyola um obviously he was your coach when you were here um as a student uh he has not only coached you at loyola but also at the national level with the u.s paralympic team how would you describe the influence like he's had in your life like when you first met him like what was like your initial sense like oh this is like a perfect coach and then like not just like in the pool but like outside of the pool like what has he meant to you as like a mentor in your life yeah that's an amazing question first off i i have to say brian has meant so much to me and my life and my career he will forever be one of my greatest friends we we say he's a part of my family like he truly is he has had such an impact on me as a person uh but brian and i are start it's actually a little bit funny so i knew of bryant so let's go back to 2012 so i knew of brian um when i made my first national team back in 2012 i was 15 and then a couple weeks later i made um the london 2012 team on my 16th birthday it was absolutely amazing and so they named the team and we're all in this room so when they name the usa team they'll have everybody who is at trial sit in this room the day after the meet's over and they'll literally just announce the team and it's the most nerve-wracking scary thing like ever it's just so terrifying so they like named the team so everybody who was on it got to stay in the room and then we went in we had meetings for a long time after throughout the day and i'll never forget like brian was in the room and i was like oh my god like brian's one of the coaches like he's one of the national team coaches he's going on this trip i was so intimidated by brian i was like oh my god like he coaches joe wise and he coaches all these really amazing people like he's such an expert like i'm so intimidated so a couple weeks go by so i was in june of 2012 and we left for training camp for the games in august to 2012. so we spent um two weeks on a military base in stuttgart germany before we left to go over to london um and that was kind of to get used to the time difference and kind of all come together before we left for games so we're at this training camp and i remember they don't really do this now but at the time they used to assign you coaches each day at training camp and so it was towards the end and i was like a part of me was like oh thank god like i haven't worked with brian yet like i think he's so scary like all this is so funny for me to look back on this now but there was one day where i elected to go to an extra training session because i needed to work on some of my dives so i had gotten with one of the female coaches and we were working my dive at the pool and brian happened to be there and she's working with me and she goes brian why don't you come on over here like come look at this like come see if you can fix it and i remember i looked over and i was like oh dear god and like brian came over there and like he started talking and i was like so scared and i got up on the block and i was like whatever you do like don't mess this up like do not screw up like brian is right here and i did it perfectly and i think part of it was obviously like brian's like advice and everything but also i was just like scared and praying to god that i didn't screw up in front of brian so i think um that fear in me was alive and well but it went so well and so i started talking to him a little bit more like throughout germany and the games and everything and his athlete at the time um joe wise was competing on loyola's team but he was also on the national team and on the london team so he was i want to say a sophomore or junior at the time at loyola so i started talking to him about loyola and the opportunity to swim on a division one team and i started talking to him about brian and what that was like so that's kind of how i really got to know brian at first and i arranged for a visit to come up there i was going into my junior year of high school um when london was over so it was about time for me to look at colleges and figure out my next move so i came up to loyola the fall of my senior year and i i fell in love with it right away i knew that that was the place for me and we had a meeting with brian me and my parents and i told them like this is what i want to do these are my goals this was 2014 but i had these goals going into rio in 2016. and i kind of knew that if i wanted to achieve those goals brian was the one who was going to get me there and i'll never forget this he looked at me and he goes you come here and we'll get you to where you want to go but like there's a big commitment here but he said i will get you where you want to go if you can work hard enough and i said let's do it so that was kind of like just like the fairy tale beginning of it all and when i got here for my freshman year in 2014 after the first week of um full full classes like not still this week but like the very first full week of classes and practices i remember it was a friday afternoon i came in and i sat on my bed like on the edge of the bed and i literally just stared at the wall for a while i was like oh dear god and i've never been so exhausted and so just worked in my entire life and i remember staring at the wall and i go i don't know how i'm gonna do four years of this holy crap and then i remember i took a very long nap um to keep from crying but you know brian i think the best thing about him besides being an expert like coach and just an incredible person is that he wants his athletes to be obviously great swimmers and everything but he more so wants them to be great people and i think in my time at loyola that's what i really learned there are very few coaches who actually care about their athletes as a human being as supposed to just a robot and and brian is one of those incredible people so not only is he an amazing coach but he's a truly amazing person he's got an amazing family and i just have all the respect in the world for him and i will forever be grateful because all my successes are as much mine as they are his without a doubt yeah i mean that's a great story oh that was a great story i mean so talk about the stages of that going from the pressure of just you know facing him to now he's your coach in college i mean that's that's great i mean i i don't even know what to say but i i mean i'm so entertained by that you have no idea you have no idea how dialed in i was all right so obviously you're talking about training for london for rio um let's move on to the past olympics that you dealt with obviously we just had the covet we're still i'll have it actually we still have the coven 19 pandemic going on so talk about your training going into the uh 2020 which happened in 2021 olympia yeah um yeah you know the last year and a half of the last 19 months um i mean we were all talking before this but this it is felt honestly kind of like a blur the last year but um going into these games it's interesting because in march of 2020 when everything got really bad um brian and i we were swimming here up until when they told us we couldn't anymore so it was me brian and a few members of the para group were training here and then unfortunately you know obviously we lost access to the pool so we went to a pool um down the road meadowbrook pool if anybody knows where that's at um so we were there for a little while and of course that pool shut down and it was a really hard thing for me to deal with because i realized in that moment like things are getting really bad and i'm gonna have to leave baltimore and that was really scary for me because i did not want to leave ryan i did not want to leave loyola where you know i was working here i had you know up until that point i've been here since 2014 like i really built a life for myself here and and i loved it i had really good training at the time i was actually just coming off of the the fall prior to that i had had a really bad fracture and i was coming off of that but also really great world championships the summer prior so i had dealt with a lot but i was coming off this fracture but i was swimming so well with brian and things were really looking up so i had a lot of hopes and a lot of um a lot of goals going into those games that year so when it came down to it when i knew that staying here wasn't going to be an option that i didn't foresee any pool opportunities opening up here i realized that i was going to have to go home to georgia and i'll never forget i was standing in my living room and i had like texted brian that i was leaving and i didn't know when i'd be back obviously and my mom bless her soul drove 10 hours out to pick me up so he could fit all my stuff in the car and to drive me to georgia to my hometown and bless her soul because i stood in my living room sobbing just like crying and trying to act like like i was okay and not let her see me cry um but i just stood there and i just i just cried for a while as we were packing up the car because that's how much loyola and being here means to me so i went home to georgia for about nine months and then you know it was around october and still realize that or i guess like six months whatever it is my time is all messed up but it was like october of last year and i realized that you know i still wasn't going to have the training opportunities i needed in baltimore and i was really high risk for coving and that was before a vaccine so i um actually ended up moving to colorado for a year to train at the olympic and paralympic training center going into tokyo so i got out there in colorado we created a bubble at the olympic and parliament training center the only people that were there there were like 12 of us from the swim team and then a few people from random sports here and there but maybe a total 20 people on the entire campus which i think can house like 600 people at a time so it was a ghost town but there were about 12 of us training out there which was you know it was a good environment i loved my teammates i was there my best friend happens to be on the national team too so we live together and that was a really great experience um we had access to a 50 meter olympic sized pool we had altitude but you know it wasn't baltimore and it wasn't loyal and it wasn't brian so that was really difficult and challenging for me but i knew that at the time it was what i needed so i stayed out there for a year through the tokyo games um it was a very controlled environment very different from what i was used to we had kova testing every day at one point um we were only allowed out of the training center for up to four hours at a time and you had to get approved where you were going so it was definitely a big sacrifice going into games but i think having access to long course was really helpful and then having the support of my teammates um was really really great for me in addition to being in a bubble but you know it was a challenging time but i told myself the minute that we heard that the games weren't cancelled that it was going to be postponed you know brian was the one who told me it was confirmed and i had this moment of oh my god like what am i going to do the next year like is am i ever going to be back in baltimore to train for these games like how am i going to do this so i just committed myself whatever it takes to get to and get through these games is what i will do to be you know i will do anything to be at my best so needless to say it was a very different and and challenging year going into it and i i can't tell you how much i miss baltimore so not to admit i know this is going to sound like kind of a stupid question but from baltimore to when you moved to colorado springs yeah were you were you like swimming in georgia did you have a place to swim or did you take all those months off and and if you did i mean how did that affect you obviously i'm sure like you must have lost a lot of progress yeah no that's such a great question for the first six weeks i was home i did not have access to any kind of water um and that was really difficult for me and i'm such a i feel like anybody who knows me knows that i do not sit still well i do not um i have a really hard time relaxing and like doing nothing and like taking time off it has just never been something i've been good at um i just every day i go into it with okay like how can i get the absolute most out of the state and it doesn't matter if it's swimming work you know um different like speaking engagements whatever it is i'm always fully committed to whatever i'm doing so i got home couldn't swim for six weeks it was driving me insane so this is actually really funny but i started doing um okay so for swimmers we call anything on land like any land exercise dry land like that's just what it's called so i was doing dry land and lifting weights twice a day every day and you know that made me feel better but it still wasn't simulating like what i would have been doing in the water so okay this is really funny and you kind of have to have an imagination to like get a picture of it i found this uh coffee table in my house and it was a really short but like long coffee table and i found this um it was like okay so swimmers use these hand paddles that you put on and it kind of like works your arms and fixes hand placement and everything so you attach hand paddles to yourself so i found some ropes so i tied the hand paddles to them i installed like this little screw up on the wall so i would lay i'm not even kidding face first on the table and attach the paddles to my hands and the ropes kind of had like a little like they were a little snug and like it kind of had a little give to them but i would mimic swimming freestyle like while laying on this table that's how desperate i got at one point um so that was the first six i i cannot tell you guys i drove my parents crazy while i was at home working out i cannot tell you so that was the first six weeks and then i decided to harass my parents even more since i was there and i literally found online these pools that you can order they're tethered pools and i found that i could fit this tethered pool in our garage in georgia so i literally went to my parents and they were probably so sick of me at this point and i went um hey guys like i know i've like kind of interrupted your lives and everything but could i just do a little bit more and turn our garage into an aquatic center like would you guys be okay with that and bless my parents hearts because they are amazing people the first words out of their mouth were okay like when can we get it here like full on like totally in for it to help me you know continue training for this goal in these dreams i had so we literally got the pool a week later delivered and um took us a week to put it together because my mom and i refused my dad's help in putting it together and we put it together backwards the first time like completely wrong my dad comes outside and he's like we're having trouble getting this part to like fit in my my dad takes one look at it doesn't even look at the manual and he goes you know you put it together wrong right and we stare at each other it's been like three days of this so far and we're like oh my god so we had to disassemble it and start completely over so within about two weeks of getting the pool i was finally back in water so i was swimming up to two hour sessions in my garage like with a with my mom out there like helping me with intervals and stuff but like tethered in place in this pool swimming and when i tell you that was actually some of the hardest training i've ever done no joke because you're in this like eight foot long pool and it's not that big so everything that you put out into it like comes back at you so the waves don't have anywhere to go so you're kind of just like it felt like swimming in the ocean but i actually think it built up my strength so much in those couple months that i used it um so props to my parents and just like gave me a whole new level of gratitude for being in the water but also when i went back to the pool like having like a normal sized pool to swim in because that is tough swimming in a tethered pool let me tell you but yeah that was kind of my experience uh training at home in georgia yeah that's crazy that's glad to hear that you really had to think outside the box because you didn't have access obviously to like a regular pool you're so used to going to to train uh yeah it's really nice that you have to do that in your own garage i think that's really cool that's a really cool story yeah um i want to ask you just from a broad sense obviously you've won medals in various stages you've won gold medals in the paralympics and the world championships you've set paralympic records i mean to sum it all up you've had many great accomplished accomplishments excuse me so far in your career um which one do you think means the most to you personally and uh why do you think that yeah um well before i really get into it i do have to okay so you guys listening i mean you can't see this obviously but i have um my gold and my silver medal with me today from tokyo so i always i always love being able to bring these out um it's freaking heavy but i just think these are so cool and you know when you win a medal at the games it's like okay it's at this crazy moment where you're like okay like this is really cool like i did it like i reached my goal like that's amazing but funny enough when you come back you kind of have like this period in time where they just like sit like so i put mine in like a pair of socks and i just put them in a drawer somewhere like you don't really know what to do with them so i kind of always tell people that they're really cool to have and they're really cool to see and everything but the real joy in it for me is being able to share it with other people like i don't think that will ever get old and through everything that i've accomplished in my career and i'm so grateful to have accomplished the things that i did like i look at my medals and i don't think to myself like oh that's the end-all be-all i think it's what the medals represent and what i really get to do with them and sharing them with hopefully the next generation that's going to go out and do the exact same thing is my favorite there's one memory that will forever be like ingrained in my mind and really kind of made me understood what this is all about i was in rio and i had just come off the podium with my first medal my first gold medal and at those games we had five minutes in the stands with our families when we would come off the podium so i got to go upstairs and i had like it was really funny i had like the security detail with me and then two coaches with me also and i had a drug tester with me because i had to go to doping right after and provide a sample so i kind of was like traveling into the stands with this posse and i had never won yeah i didn't i had never won a gold medal before so i don't really understand that you you can't just come off of the podium with the metal a gold medal around your neck and go into the stands and be unnoticed so i get up there to my family and brian's also there so we're sharing this incredible moment but there's people all around and then all of a sudden i see this little girl in a pink wheelchair and she's like waving at me and like security's trying to keep people off of me my little brother is too like it's kind of chaos but i like motion for her to come forward and she she said i can't believe i get to meet you and she goes like you're the reason why i believe i can do this one day and it was just the most amazing moment her mom and her had traveled all the way there to watch the games and that to me was just the most incredible thing and you know she said because of you i know that this is possible and like i put my medal around her neck and i think that's when it hit me that this is so much bigger than just going out and swimming it's so much bigger than the metals and the records it's it's really about showing what is possible to others and that you don't have to live life within limits and you don't have to accept somebody telling you all the things that you're not gonna do or you're you might just die like you don't have to accept that and i think that is literally my favorite part of getting to go out and do this for sure i mean my next question was gonna be who inspires you but i don't even need to ask that because you already know who inspires you i mean i mean i i mean that's such a great story i mean honestly like especially too you're saying like all these people are coming after you and then you motion for her i mean i can't imagine what that was like number one for her when that happened because obviously you have a gold medalist tell you is motioning you over after you just watch them win i mean that's insane i so i mean that little girl i mean she must have been like star struck and then with you when that happened i can't imagine how that made you feel i mean like was there a party that almost like almost like i don't want to say cried but i mean it must have like really touched your heart oh yeah i remember i had been that whole entire day was so emotional and standing on the podium and and hearing the anthem really got to me and then i think seeing my family because without them i would have never been there would never done that so to share that moment i like i get choked up now like i'm getting kind of emotional just thinking about it but it really hit me when she said that and i realized like my greatest achievement people the medals are great but people will forget the medals they forget the times that that sort of thing like people will forget that but they will never forget that the impact that you had on somebody else and for me that will stand as my greatest accomplishment is hopefully impacting her life to go out and do something big and let me tell you the amount of times during training over the next couple years after that when things would get hard and i thought i was gonna die during some sets like i would always think back to her and what she said to me and continuing on to hopefully do that for somebody else too and i think about her sometimes did she go after what she wanted to achieve did she you know dream big and not be afraid to to go up and do this against these obstacles and the odds and everything and i hope that she never let somebody else dictate for her what she's capable of so it's all these different things that really were the driving force after that and i just had so much gratitude for her like she made such an impact on me too and that moment i remember that night i went back to my room and i just bawled my eyes out like just holding my medal in my hand and thinking about what she said to me so all in all i think when i look back that day will be probably my my favorite swimming memory of all time for sure yeah i mean there's so many you could pick from but uh i have a curious question before we wrap up how how much do you think that gold medal actually weighs because you say it's pretty heavy that's so funny that you asked that because i posted it on my instagram story today and whenever i post them i always get like a couple dms and people like how much does it weigh like what do you think and i honestly don't know i was sitting here before i got on i was just looking at it and i was like i'm literally gonna go find a scale and weigh it just to see how much it weighs but it's gotta be like a good like three four pounds i don't know it's like kinda it's like a couple pounds at least it's insane but i actually pulled out one of my rio medals the other night and um i had some friends over and they were like have you compared them yet and i was like no it didn't even cross my mind um but i think tokyo is a little bit heavier than rio so i'll have to bring in i have to bring them both out one day when i go to something and i'm speaking the to let the people decide which one's heavier that's that's interesting because i mean i mean gold itself is like pretty heavy so i mean i'm just curious did you did you bite it i did yeah that's uh let me tell you it's the it's one of the best parts about winning a medal and when you go through the media zone um you stop for pictures before you go to interviews on your way out like off of the podium and off of pool deck and um it's always a really fun like kind of overwhelming moment because all the photographers are yelling like smile and some are like bite it like bite it and it's always so funny because my oi is actually in my teeth also so i have dentogenesis imperfecta which means my teeth are really brittle so every time i go to bite it i have to remind myself to like bite it but do it gently or i'm literally going to be in front of everybody and like break a tooth like in front of the media and like just start panicking so that's always kind of a funny thing but that is really fun to do after you come off yeah i would love to bite into a gold medal that i just won that would be a great feeling it's uh it's a cool moment for sure for sure all right well mckenzie thank you so much for taking the time to join jimmy and i today thank you it was amazing you completely blew us away with your answers uh we dove into pretty much everything we wanted to and you also added some great stories from the story in germany from being intimidated by brian to uh setting up the pool in your garage yeah it was all just great to hear and we're really glad that you uh had the time to join us today yeah no thanks for having me you guys are great and the questions were awesome so thank you yeah no problem the answers were awesome too the answers are great yeah the answers are better than the questions awesome good to hear