A Strong Response to an Unsettling Question
Dawson turns setback into motivation for a breakout season
Mike Brohard
The question was one which suggested the day would probably not be normal.
As Maya White was getting ready for another freshman morning, her roommate Erin Dawson wanted her opinion.
“She asked me, ‘does my leg look swollen to you?” White recalled. “I’m looking at it, and I thought this is not right.”
In the situation, Dawson and White did what everyone would do – ask their suitemates and fellow swimmers Katie McClelland and Emily Chorpening for a second opinion. McClelland, based on some family history, had an idea what she was seeing, considering Dawson’s left leg was about twice the normal size. The conclusion of the gathered medical experts was conclusive: Dawson should go to the hospital.
Immediately, if not sooner.
Which is exactly the way Colorado State head swimming and diving coach Christopher Woodard wanted to start his day. There are a lot of things covered in a coaching contract, but some – like this – aren’t in the manual. Being a parent himself, he knew he had to contact Dawson’s mother and let her know what was going on even though he wasn’t exactly filled with answers.
“It’s certainly not top of the list, that’s for sure,” Woodard said. “It was not a fun scenario, seeing her leg blow up like that and knowing something was seriously wrong.”
Even though Dawson didn’t comprehend the full extent of what was happening, she was finally getting an answer. It wasn’t the first time her leg had started to swell, nor was it the first time her legs were in pain. There was a lot which wasn’t adding up her first four months on campus.
Such as the fact she would have multiple days where she would be nailing it at practice, then she’d hit a wall. She couldn’t carry it forward, especially not in test sets, in a race or when the training took an uptick.
There were days she would have to get out of the pool, so exhausted from a set, she would lay on the bench on the side to gather the energy to get to the locker room.
Finally, Dawson felt she was going to get an answer to her morning query, one which had been building for some time it seemed.
“They were trying to find the pulse in my leg, and they can’t find it. They bring out the baby ultrasound to find it and they still can’t,” Dawson said of the trip to the hospital. “I’m just lying there in a lot of pain, and the ultrasound lady was putting it up and down my leg, then she whispered to the doctor, ‘I can’t say officially, but there’s a lot of them.’
“It ended up being blood clots.”
Dawson had been in the emergency room a few days prior, but there was no diagnosis to be found. Finally, she had one: deep vein thrombosis.
I think that really stuck with me, making an impact for my team. I remember how proud of me they all were, and that felt really good.Erin Dawson
She would have surgery in late January and remained in the hospital for a week. Her mom and grandmother came out from Nevada to be with her, but with hospitals still very much under covid protocols, White was doing a lot of intermediary work, passing along information and doing what she could for her roommate and her family.
Almost immediately, Dawson was feeling relief, specifically mentally.
“It made me feel better. It also gave me motivation to come back from that stronger,” Dawson said. “I feel like a lot of people would have quit. I wanted to see what was on the other side and I knew I could come back from it.
“It was very frustrating. I also had a concussion earlier in the year, so I was pretty much out the entire season. It was my freshman year, so I’m trying to make that transition. It was frustrating. My class, they’re like superstars. It was hard to be the one not traveling and not going as fast. The rest of my class was super good.”
The rest of her recruiting class – six strong in all – had been busy winning events and moving into the program’s top 10 lists, led by White, a distance specialist. They trained together a lot and White was confused why her teammate was doing great in practice but would then fall back.
Swimmers understand the improvement process. There are long periods where they plateau, only to get excited when they shave a tenth of a second. Dawson had experienced all of that before, but this was going to be a different beast.
So, she became one.
“If the technique and drive is there, generally when you don’t see someone rise to the challenge in terms of performance, you start to question what’s happening away from the pool or are there mental blocks we need to focus on,” Woodard said. “We didn’t get the sense that was an issue with Erin. We were just kind of scratching our heads to figure out how to get her to perform at a higher level.
“The turnaround was so quick. When we have kids who have to have surgery, generally you’re thinking it’s going to take six months to a full year to fully get back, and Erin, it was almost overnight. She hit the ground running as soon as she went home that summer to train. I don’t think we were surprised by the time she got back because we were getting constant updates. To then see her takeoff and start to dominate in not only the training but dominate in races, that was maybe not fully expected.”
She had to start slowly. She was back in Moby Pool during the spring, remembering her first set was 300 yards, which isn’t much. Still, she felt the burn. She was still on blood thinners and had to be somewhat cautious, but she was gradually moving forward.
She went back home and trained with her club team, pushing herself as hard as she could, feeling she was chasing time lost, not time drops.
“There was a little bit of stress. It was, I’m behind, I had all that time off, what am I supposed to do?” Dawson said. “There was also motivation – I’m going to show I can come back from this and that I’m not a quitter or woe is me. I was definitely very driven.
“The yardage, it wasn’t more, but my club team trains differently. I think it was what I was doing, keeping myself accountable for how hard I was working, even if I was doing less than people. I was trying to beat the boys. My club team is mostly boys, and my younger brother, Hunter, is there, so I had to beat him, but he’s getting pretty fast.”
She’s happy to announce she can still beat Hunter in most races, but sadly, no longer all. As it turns out, much to Woodard’s glee, she can beat a lot of people in the Mountain West.
The year before, it weighed heavy on her mind the rest of her recruiting class was making the team better, but there she was on the sidelines. She and White were the two introverted kids who were paired as roommates, and Dawson was going through all of this while she was trying to get to know somebody she was going to have to lean on often. She was also watching White etch her name in the top three in the school’s distance events.
As it turned out, they were the perfect pairing for each other, and a deep friendship sparked. They spent the freshman spring doing all sorts of things together, including going on picnics when the weather was better and everybody on campus was sick of being sheltered indoors.
They are peanut butter and jelly now, complete with matching costumes. White says they think the same and often say identical things to each other in unison. At practice, when there are options to a set, they find in different lanes they are choosing the same task.
White was as encouraging as a new friend could be, even doted on her, and outside of Dawson, no one is more encouraged by the results.
“I knew her frustration; I understood it. Being able to see that transform in her, actually putting in the work and then getting the results she wanted … Seeing her happy is what makes me happy,” White said. “I know everything she’s been through, so to see that transformation, that shift, to actually go into meets and do exactly what she wants to do and exactly what she deserves was awesome.”
Her return was crystal clear the first meet of her sophomore season, the Chick-Fil-A Invitational in Fresno, Calif. Dawson placed in events and scored big points and never fell back.
She won eight individual races during the season and ranked third on the squad with 270 points scored. She went from a question mark to a constant, a reliable performer who was up for any challenge, all of which she excepted with a smile.
“When we went to Chick-Fil-A, I think I swam the 200 IM my first event,” Dawson said. “Something that stuck with me was I went over to Woody, and he said, ‘how does it feel to make an impact?’' I think that really stuck with me, making an impact for my team. I remember how proud of me they all were, and that felt really good.”
The first meet set a tone for her breakout sophomore campaign. It felt good to see the training produce results, no longer frustration. The more she proved to herself she was back, the more she wanted to do for the team.
She was beyond reliable. She was also flexible and versatile, a bonus for a coach looking for wins at dual meets, giving Woodard a chance to stack the lineup in the Rams’ favor as they extended their unbeaten dual streak to 23 meets, two years strong heading into Friday’s season opener at Wyoming.
“We always talk about Erin is always two thumbs up,” Woodard said. “Hey, we need you to do this -- two thumbs up. Hey, there’s some pressure here, what about swimming this event? – two thumbs up. In terms of coachability, the dictionary has her picture. She’ll respond to anything you throw at her in a very positive way. That certainly helps.”
The best part was Dawson wasn’t quite finished opening eyes. She took a great year of training and packaged it with a strong taper heading into the Mountain West Championships in Houston. The result was her scoring in three events, capped by an all-conference performance in the 400 IM, posting a 4:17.81, the third-best time in program history. She went 2:02.34 in the 200 IM, the fourth-best mark for the program.
It all started with a leg in the 800 free relay, where the team was just off a school mark. The 200 free is not an event she swims in meets, but her training dictated her selection, and her impressive split proved a point.
The early part of her freshman season didn’t make sense. The diagnosis gave her some answers, but as charged as she was to return strong, her sophomore run was a blur of wild emotions and results.
“Before that I hadn’t even thought it was a thing, that it was possible for me. Coming back from the blood clots, it was so crazy,” Dawson said. “I don’t know how else to describe it. When I think back, it’s how I could come back from that, but also be humble about it. That’s important to me, staying humble about it, and also leading by example.”
Heading into this season, all of it finally seems real. The setback brought on by blood clots. The dazzling return which makes her an integral part of the future.
She likes the new reality, and so does Woodard.
“It’s not to denigrate anyone, but she’s doing her part and then some. She’s able to not only encourage teammates to better performances but also cover for some of them when they don’t have those performances,” he said. “She’s reliable in every situation now. I think it’s a relief for her and it’s a relief for us as coaches. Now it’s more, hey, let’s really hammer down on some of these technical issues and race strategies to see how far we can go with this.”
Dawson has an idea, one which would take her straight to the top of podium. She doesn’t see placing third at conference in the 400 IM as a finish, rather a launching point to continue forward.
The whole experience made her stronger in multiple ways. She feels it in the water, especially in the harder sets. More importantly, she’s better equipped mentally to handle the challenges she will face, because she knows they’re out there.
So are better races.
“There’s definitely still more to come. I set target times, but it’s more that I want to win conference,” she said. “Last year, that wasn’t my standard. I can do more. I want to keep going up. There will be some dips in there, but blood clots just made me stronger and better. I want each year to be better.”
A strong statement stemming from confidence. Yet she’ll tell you it’s a much better way to start a day with a strong declaration than asking an unsettling question.