The Power of Positive Thinking
Barbosa surges back, better than ever
Mike Brohard
She looked up at the board, amazed. In an instant, Maisy Barbosa transformed back to her 10-year-old self.
Those are the days for swimmers. Youthful exuberance and times which melted like marshmallows held too long over an open flame. Like most of the women she’ll be competing against this weekend at the Mountain West Championships at the CRWC Natatorium at the University of Houston, Barbosa found the water at an early age.
She’s been swimming competitively since she was 5. In age-group swimming, time drops are phenomenal, even in sprints. Shaving time can come in chunks of seconds, and it feels amazing.
As the swimmer develops, those drops become smaller and smaller. Blocks of seconds become a couple. As the yardage of a thousand practices start to push the body closer to peak performance, a mass of tenths become the norm. Even the clip of a hundredth or two is celebrated.
But at the Hawkeye Invitational this past November, Barbosa was making up for lost time. Months adding up to years of coming back from hip surgery. Time spent pushing back the what-ifs in her mind with a smile on her face. The discouragement of hitting plateaus which seemingly never end. Then came the 200-yard individual medley.
In the preliminary session, Barbosa surged out front early on and stayed there. When she hit the wall, she did what every swimmer does, check the board. A 2:01.14, a personal best, more than two seconds faster than anything she’d done in her college career.
Little Maisy was thrilled.
“Yes. It felt like that. I did feel young,” Barbosa said. “Not young again; I’m 21. When you get into college, it’s tenths.
“I haven’t felt that happy about swims since probably my freshman year. I kind of forgot what it felt like. I’d been happy with races, done well and patted myself on the back, but there’s a high that comes with being able to look up at the board and seeing a time you never expected and just feeling amazing. The 200 IM, I remember that race, not the exact time, but I looked at the board and I said, ‘yeah, this is going to be a good meet.’”
Fantastic, to be more accurate. She would place in the top eight at the meet in a trio of events, including the 200 backstroke and the 400 IM. She dropped nearly four seconds off her previous best in the 200 back. As good as those swims were, she was simply brilliant in the event which tests swimmers uniquely, the 400 IM requiring poise, endurance, a plan, and a keen ability to stick to it when the mind has to tell the body there is more.
It was, in fact, the first race she swam in college, and she won it at the Rocky Mountain Shootout as a freshman. A few months later, she broke into the school’s top 10 with a 4:20.90. Due to circumstances, she hadn’t been close since.
In actuality, she wasn’t on this particular day in Iowa City, either. She blew by the mark with a dazzling 4:15.75, nailing down the first NCAA B cut of her career. It’s the top time in the Mountain West this season and it ranks third in school history.
She was stunned. She was thrilled, And she wasn’t alone.
“It’s honestly amazing, especially with the events she swims. That’s not easy to come back from, because you need such an aerobic base and endurance to swim the 400 IM,” Maya White said. “It’s not an event you just hop back in and do. Within a year, she was back to where she was, and now she’s even faster. Honestly, it’s incredible to watch. She’s always been able to sprint the 100 back and fly, and she’s better there, too. It’s crazy.”
Throughout the years of wondering if it was ever going to happen for her, Barbosa remained true to form, to the competitor who developed, the teammate who has emerged and, most importantly, the person she’s always been.
Positive. Arrive to the deck each day with a smile. Packed away behind it was an eternal optimism.
If you know Barbosa, you are friends. She views everyone as a possible friend until proven otherwise. When you become friends, you remain her friend for life. Just ask Erin Dawson.
They met at a swim camp in San Diego in their early teens, one girl from Sparks, Nev., another from University Place, Wash. A few days together, friends for life, and now teammates the past four seasons. They have a picture from that camp, the two of them with another swimmer, Destiny Clemons. Clemons no longer swims. She and Barbosa still message to this day.
“She’s so welcoming. We weren’t even roommates at the swim camp. We were suitemates,” Dawson said. “She’s so inclusive and welcoming to everyone she meets. It’s great to be her friend. She’s always inviting you to places. She’s so positive. She’s one of those people you don’t have to talk to every single day. If you go months, you can just pick up right where you left off.
“We’d go to Futures, and she’d run up and go, ‘you’re here!’ One time we met each other at a juice bar for lunch after prelims. We’ve kept in touch, especially through social media. She’s no different. I remember the same personality. Obviously, she’s bigger and has a couple more tattoos, but she’s the same Maisy as back then.”
Obviously, she’s bigger and has a couple more tattoos, but she’s the same Maisy as back then.Erin Dawson
When Skyler Lyon transferred to Colorado State this year, she knew nobody. She found an available room at Barbosa’s place, which she shares with former CSU diver Braeden Shaffer. Barbosa and Lyon texted a couple of times concerning furniture. Was there a bed for Lyon there? Did they have a couch?
First day, Barbosa comes home to find Lyon on the couch. She joined her and they talked for hours. Lyon was convinced that day they would talk for life.
“I look at everyone as my friend. If that happens, it happens,” Barbosa said. “Some people don’t click. It’s not always easy to make friends, but I have an easier time being friendly with people just because I enjoy communicating and talking – I can talk your ear off at times. I think it’s helped me in life.”
She came to Colorado State during the pandemic, without an official visit, as those were still a no-no under NCAA rules. She was convinced Colorado State was the place for her long before coach Christopher Woodard was. The way he remembers it, he and associate head coach Lisa Ginder finally relented and took a chance on the kid.
One they’ve never regretted.
To her chagrin, her freshman year was still dominated by masks and personal-space guidelines. Barbosa’s personality viewed them as suggestions.
“I was definitely nervous, but I was also the person who walked up and down the dorm hall and said, ‘hey, I’m Maisy,’ and just walk into rooms,” she said. “I was trying to meet everybody I could. There wasn’t a single person I’d just walk past. It was always, who are you? What’s your name? Where do you live? I was so excited.”
What made her nervous was the swimming part. Pools were closed down, so she trained where she could, putting on a wetsuit and swimming in Lake Washington. No lanes, lots of waves, always wondering if she was putting in enough work.
When pools finally opened a few months before heading to college, space was limited. One person on one end of the lane, someone on the far side. Then it eased up to spacing between the wall and the flags.
She loved the chance to practice, but she wondered if it was enough.
Then she just surged out of the blocks as a freshman. She was winning races and dropping time. Getting her name in the record book was more than she could have hoped for, and Woodard deciphered they had a jewel well beyond the points she scored.
“I would be lying to you if I said we knew that right at the beginning. That’s something we discovered when she was here,” he said. “She seemed so genuine about the things she was saying. There didn’t seem to be an artifice behind it of I’m trying to prove something to you. There was a general willingness to be a team player, to be engaged. You need help here? I’ll do that. Oh, you need me to swim this event? Sure, I’ll do that.”
The end of her freshman year did not come with a bow. There were no personal records to be found at the conference championships as an issue was looming in her hip, something she tried to swim through. At the end of the season, she found out it was one which was going to require surgery, and the recovery was not going to be easy or quick.
She missed most of her sophomore season, trying to give it a go early, only to find the hip wasn’t ready for the only type of workload she knew. The past four years, if one thing has been true for the team, it’s the trio of Barbosa, Dawson and White were going to put everything they had into every practice they could. Neither of them wants to be outworked, and putting the three of them together in practice leads to a lot of competitive buttons being pushed organically.
Take one out of the equation, the others feel the loss. As positive as Barbosa remained on the outside, a swimmer knows the kicking taking place under the surface.
“My sophomore year, when she wasn’t there, you’d feel it. I’d see her and she’s walking on crutches,” White said. “I know it was mentally challenging for her. I know she felt removed from the team, and I felt a lot not swimming with her.
“I think being positive helped her, but she also gets stressed in her mind, and the energy she puts out doesn’t seem like she’s stressed. When I hear her say she’s nervous, I’m surprised, because she always comes off confident. Because she’s able to put out that energy 24/7, even if she is nervous, she is happy.”
I got to where I wanted to be and better. I just felt so good. It felt awesome.Maisy Barbosa
There come days when a swimmer simply can’t be. When times aren’t dropping, which isn’t the worst part. It’s when they remain steady. The work is there, the improvement is not. It almost feels better to see regression in some ways. That, a swimmer feels, they can fix.
A straight line plays with the mind. So does rehabilitation from a major surgery.
“I think it’s difficult because we have a long season. It’s all year,” Barbosa said. “You don’t really get any time off. I think it’s incredible to stay positive for that long. It’s natural for your body to have even a day to be negative. For me, I find if I let myself be too negative for a day, even a couple of hours, it will drive on and I stay negative. So, I try to stay positive. It becomes a trend, natural almost, because I’m so used to trying to look on the bright side. I’m a firm believer it could always be worse.
“As cheesy as it sounds, I think I have the most phenomenal support group ever. I think that really helps me. That’s how I’ve always been. I have times when I’m negative and down on myself, but for the most part, it’s something I’ve always done is trained myself to find the good in situations, ever since I was little. It makes life easier and for me in what I have going on. I know it’s not the case for everybody.”
When she is walking or driving back home from class or practice, Barbosa is probably on the phone, most likely with her mom or dad. And through those lean days of trying to find her way back, she could count on them to reinforce what she felt deep down to be true.
She would, somehow, someway, be back, because it all started with a target.
“I had goals, but it also felt like a longshot. I remember looking at the board and being shocked that was going to happen,” Barbosa said. “I knew once I had a race like that, I wanted to keep it going. Then it was, I did well in this, and I did well in this. The main swim from the meet which stuck with me was the 400 IM. My freshman year at the Mountain campus, we wrote a quote, our name and a time. I wrote 4:17.75 and I had that in my locker since my freshman year. I had not gone 4:17.75 yet.
“I chipped it down to 4:20, which was four seconds better than when I came in, but I was getting nervous. I had had that goal since I got here, and it was stressing me out I hadn’t hit it yet. I wasn’t even thinking about that time, and swimming that 400 IM and seeing it was amazing. I got to where I wanted to be and better. I just felt so good. It felt awesome.”
There had been signs at the end of her junior season, as she went back to placing at the Mountain West Championships, thought not quite as high. Even still, she posted a personal-best time in the 200 backstroke and had a few others throughout the season.
She was rounding into form. What it provided for all was a hope she could at least get back to where she was. Hoping for more, Woodard knows, would be a fool’s game.
That day in Iowa, he was happy to play the role.
“I think there was a part of her, at least from our perspective, if she was ever going to do this again at a high level. To see her take control of the process through surgery and recovery and be very positive about it, we thought we’d get her back at a decent level,” he said. “To see her this year, for me, is phenomenal.
“We always hope. You don’t know. Knowing she was coming off major hip surgery, and she’s had some other injuries to deal with … a 4:15, that’s an aspirational goal. If she doesn’t get there, who knows. Where she is now, this is all icing on the cake. This is bonus time. I know she has goals, but we want her to treat it as such. Anything she gets, this is her reward for her dedication and discipline.”
These days, with her final conference meet approaching, it’s easier to remain upbeat about her swimming. It’s always been easy for her in life to see the sunshine on a cloudy day, the good in a situation where it’s easier to see the bad.
The little things matter to Barbosa, and White said that’s never changed.
“She’s such a unique personality and so giggly. It never feels awkward talking to her, and she can strike up a pretty random conversation,” White said. “It’s fun. The other day she said, ‘I had the most amazing lunch today; it was an Uncrustable.’ It was so funny because that was not what I was expecting. I just said, ‘I’m glad that makes you happy.’”
Which is why people like having Barbosa around. Take the personality and people skills and put them into a team format, she becomes a dream for the coaching staff.
That’s what will always stick to Woodard, well beyond the wins in a variety of races and the willingness to do whatever he feels is best for the team.
“I was talking about her to visitors we’d had here. We had dinner with them, and they had all gone,” he said. “Maisy stayed back with me while we were waiting for the check. As we’re talking, she was stacking all the plates, bowls and silver wear on the table and pushing them to the side to help the waitress. That, to me, is just a snapshot of who she is. To lose someone like that who has such a big heart and is so considerate, who transcends beyond the lanes. That’s the thing that draws people to her, draws people to the program, and pushes all to be better. I will miss her immensely.”
Just as she expects she will miss the sport. She dedicated most of her life to a pursuit filled with incredible highs and somehow avoided the abyss lows can often create. The championships will give her one last shot, but she will not go to Houston shooting for times. Doing so makes her feel anxious, and that’s no way to swim, she’s found.
The ultimate goal is to walk away with pride. Not from a meet, but from a career well done and the dedication it required.
In short, to step away, as herself. Happy as happy can be.
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