From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Best Amateur Athlete — Female

October 18 2006

Becca Heller

Some things simply can't be rationally explained -- like long-distance swimmer Becca Heller of Boca Raton, for example. Just 12 years old, Heller won the 12.5-mile Florida Keys Community College Swim Around Key West in June, completing the open-water race in slightly more than five hours. It was the second consecutive year Heller won the contest, defeating much-older male and female swimmers, but this time, she did it with a brand-new scar down the middle of her back. (She jokes that the scar is from a shark attack.) In January, the Loggers' Run Middle School seventh-grader had undergone surgery to correct a severe curvature in her spine that was stunting her growth and would have eventually affected her ability to breathe. Although doctors had told Heller she wouldn't be able to swim again for as long as six months, she was back in the water after only two weeks for the Key West swim and shaved 10 minutes off her 2005 time. Heller wants to swim the 21-mile English Channel before she's old enough to get her driver's license. Don't bet against her.