Mackesy, now a senior at Magruder High, has not needed another surgery since, but his condition prevented him from playing contact sports for several years — his skull would not have been able to protect his brain from contact. His first love, soccer, was not an option, so he began swimming.

Mackesy started swimming competitively at 7 and is now committed to competing at Purdue.

“As soon as he learned he could put his face in the water, he loved it,” Joni said.

While his brain injury pushed Mackesy toward the pool, the team and club environment hooked him. Even right after surgery, Mackesy embraced his condition. Eventually, he would have been able to reengage in contact sports after his skull healed, but he had fallen in love with swimming.

Joni explained that when her son was in elementary school, he bumped heads with another child at recess. A teacher came over to check on the youngsters, worried about an injury.

“Hey, are you okay?” the teacher asked.

“Yeah, I think I’m okay — I just hit my titanium plates,” Mackesy responded. That answer drew a rapid trip to the nurse’s office.

Mackesy swam at Rockville-Montgomery Swim Club as a child but consistently placed near the back half of the group. Only in recent years has he really begun to take his personal training seriously, working with the National Development Group at RMSC.

He fully bloomed last year. At the 2023 spring national club association championships in Orlando, he set personal bests in five heats, including the 1,000-yard freestyle (9:14.69), the 200 backstroke (1:48.18) and the 200 butterfly (1:49.13).

Mackesy’s junior season at Magruder was similarly successful. He was the Maryland Class 4A/3A state champion in the 200-yard individual medley (1:49.70) and was runner-up in the 500 freestyle (4:28.08). Now, in his final season before he heads to West Lafayette, Ind., Mackesy is trying to leave an imprint on Magruder.

“He absolutely can break every single one of our records,” Magruder Coach Jeremy Snyder said.

It’s not like he has a long way to go. He already holds the school records in the 100 backstroke, 200 IM, 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle.

Mackesy does not practice often with Magruder, devoting most of his time to his club team, like most elite high school swimmers. Still, Snyder said Mackesy is receptive to coaching and stays grounded. Magruder lost a lot of experience from last season’s senior-laden team, so Mackesy knows team wins won’t be as frequent.

“Just being blunt: We’re going to lose a lot of matches this year,” he said. “We’re trying to get me in every event that we can just to break every single record on that board.”

Thirteen years after a life-changing surgery, Mackesy is now planning to move more than 600 miles away. When Mackesy told his mom that he was strongly considering Purdue, she grew nervous.

But Joni flashed back to when Evan was a little boy, running around with a massive scar on his head. She was nervous, obviously, but still needed to let Evan be a kid.

Another memory always comes to Joni’s mind: When she and 5-year-old Evan sat in the waiting room, awaiting surgery, hours trickled by before it was just the Mackesys and another family.

Joni was anxious, but when she overheard a nurse saying words such as “bypass” to the other family, it changed the way she and Evan looked at life.

“You overhear those kinds of words, and you think my problem is so small compared to theirs,” Joni said.

A scar on his head serves as a reminder — and proof.