If you haven’t heard of Michael Phelps, you might as well be living under a rock. The six-foot-four, 23-year-old recently leaped from being a household name into the annals of history, as he earned eight gold metals in Beijing and broke eight world records in swimming. He established himself as the statistically greatest Olympian of all time with a total medal count of sixteen medals, including fourteen golds, the most of any Olympian.

Phelps’ leap was quite remarkable, considering his adolescence when, as a gangly teen, he his schoolmates taunted his flicked his “sticky-out ears,” and threw his baseball cap out the school bus window. In 1993 his parents, Debbie, a middle-school principal, and Fred, now a retired policeman, separated and then divorced the following year. He also struggled with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and took on medication for two years.

His only refuge became the pool.

“Michael may not have been able to focus in school, but I saw a passion for swimming at such a young age,” Debbie Phelps told Us Weekly in August 2008. “He could be at a swim meet or practice for hours. It was a great outlet.” “You really exert your energy when you swim,” confirms Emily Scanga, a member of the PBHS Swim Team. “If you’re really competitive and want to get something done, then you can really focus.”

In 2000, Phelps, then 15, competed in his first Olympics in Sydney, Australia, becoming the youngest male American swimmer in 68 years. When he first made the Olympic team, a kid that Phelps said was part of the group that had once tormented him came up to congratulate him. Phelps looked at him and said that he was sorry, and that he didn’t remember him.

Recounting the story, Phelps’ mother told NBC Sports Anchor Bob Costas how proud she was that, instead of lashing out, he ignored the bully and rendered his attack worthless by making him seem invisible. “The bullying and adversity made him stronger and work harder,” she explained.

Although he wasn’t an everyday figure in his life, Phelps’ father Fred Phelps reconciled with his son in the last few years, although not entirely. The cameras at the Olympic Games often panned towards Debbie Phelps as she cheered on her son, the aptly nicknamed Baltimore Bullet, as he swam in triumph and won gold. But where was his father? He was right back in Maryland, cheering him on from in front of a television screen.

“I’m just on pins and needles every time he hits the water,” Fred Phelps recently told the Baltimore Sun. “This is just about Michael. This is his glory, his time to shine, and I want him to get everything he wants.”

Phelps went on from Sydney, where he placed 5th in the 200 m Butterfly, to Greece, where he won six gold medals and two bronze, with an added seven world records in swimming. His astounding success in Greece brought about comparisons to Mark Spitz, who was best known for winning seven gold medals in the 1972 Munich Olympics, a world record at that time, but he later surpassed Spitz in Beijing.

Phelps’ story is that of a classic modern-day fable: a kid who goes through a whole amount of trouble and misfortune only to carry on through it all and emerge from the path victorious, not wasting a single step in his stride away from his former demons. Perhaps Cecil B. DeMille said it best: “The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”