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GREENSBORO -- This time of the summer, most Greensboro swimmers are focusing on this week's city meet.

They have mastered their strokes, polished their turns and prepared for their main competitors. Coaches are frantically trying to throw together a few last-minute relays and swimmers are hoping their hard work will pay off.

Twelve-year-old Kevin Gehsmann of Green Valley Swim and Tennis Club has different priorities. He is not obsessing over shedding that extra tenth of a second. This summer, he is content to just sit on the sidelines and cheer on his brothers.

After his first practice of the 2009 summer season, Gehsmann tried to dive over a lane rope in the four-foot deep area of the pool, something he had done many times before.

When he was parallel to the water, he realized that he had not jumped out far enough to clear the lane rope, so he leaned forward enough that his legs would not hit the rope. That split-second decision resulted in his body entering the water at a 90-degree angle, causing his head to hit the bottom of the pool with enough force to draw blood.

When his mom, Jackie Gehsmann, saw him a few minutes later, she brushed off the injury. Boys being boys, she thought.

When her son began to complain about a pain in his neck, she took him to the doctor. Turns out he had suffered a fractured neck and had to be taken to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

"I didn't expect it at all; it was very scary. I couldn't believe it was happening," she said. "The doctors kept saying that it was a 'lucky' fracture because there was no neurological damage."

Before the injury, Kevin Gehsmann was an AAU basketball player, soccer player and year-round swimmer for STAR Aquatics.

These days, he's in a neck brace, spending most of his time playing Scrabble and watching movies.

"(The hardest part) is not being able to play sports because that was, like, more than 50 percent of my day," he said.

Gehsmann and his summer swim coach Scott Budde had high hopes for this summer season.

"Kevin has a lot of natural ability, and I could tell that he really improved that ability over the winter," Budde said.

Gehsmann's hopes came from something more than just his improvement at STAR.

"I was really looking forward to swimming in this city meet because my birthday usually is always, like, the day before the meet, so I have to age up. But this year it's after the meet."

Despite the disappointment, Gehsmann and his family know he's lucky. Instead of being discouraged, the family is making the best of the situation. Kevin has been keeping time for the team all season so he can still be part of the sport and be with his two older brothers, who also swim for Green Valley.

"We have gotten a lot closer, and his brothers have been really supportive," Jackie Gehsmann said.

Not being able to swim this summer "is just one short little time, even though it seems long to him right now," she said.