AP, Atlanta :
Missy Franklin can still light up a room.
She’ll start off with that big, broad smile.
Then comes the bubbly laugh, summoned from deep in the belly.
Finally, there’s a boundless, almost child-like passion for whatever is on her mind.
“The thing that people always ask me about her, after they first meet Missy and she’s so nice, they wonder, ‘Is she like that all the time?'” said Jack Bauerle, her former coach. “Yes, that’s what she’s like all the time.”
Even now, when she has every reason to be bitter about a broken-down body that snuffed out her brilliant swimming career, Franklin still glides easily to the sunny side to life.
