The Demons of Diana Nyad

In a New Yorker profile, the marathon swimming queen reveals a dark and troubled past... including allegations of sexual abuse by Hall of Fame coach Jack Nelson when she was a teen... You could see it coming. We've heard this story before, we know the set up. "I had him on a pedestal - he was it," she says. "I was just dying for some leadership and I selected him."

I gulped, knowing what was coming next. And sure enough... Another tale that sounded darkly familiar. Young teenage girl, coach in his mid-30s. Girl is ambitious, trying to swim away from a bad home life, savors the guidance, the encouragement. Might even be in love with this older man who makes her feel so strong. He makes her feel like she can achieve anything. If only she does what he says. And then it happens. One afternoon when she's 14, he forces himself on her. He continues molesting her throughout high school, in hotel rooms away at meets, in his office off the deck, in his car.

No, we're not talking about Rick Curl. Diana Nyad is talking about her old coach, Jack Nelson. The same Jack Nelson who was the head coach of the U.S. Olympic women's team in 1976. The same guy who was an Olympian himself, in the 200 fly, back in 1956. The same Jack Nelson that I remember well, from his days leading the Ft. Lauderdale Swim Club. He was an irrepressible spark plug of a man, a short stocky presence of infectious cheer. In 1993, the city of Ft. Lauderdale named him its man of the year.

That was 29 years later. The allegations in question occurred long before he became so beloved and decorated as a coach. In an astonishing profile by Ariel Levy on Nyad in this week's New Yorker, she says that Nelson first abused her in 1964, when she was 14. He would have been 33 at the time. After years of the abuse, Nyad says she told a teammate about it. The teammate told her that Nelson had done the same to her. They reported him to the Headmaster of Pine Crest, where Nelson was coaching at the time, where Nyad was a student. He was asked to leave at the end of the school year. It didn't take him long to find another nearby job and continue his rise as a coach. Twelve years later, he reached the pinnacle of his profession, as the head coach of a U.S. Olympic team.

This abuse allegedly occurred half a century ago. The scars run deep. They clearly helped motivate her in that mad Quixote-esque quest to swim from Cuba to Florida. She's spoken of it before, through the years, but seldom named Nelson by name. Still, the story has been out there. Google 'Diana Nyad' and the first auto-fill that pops up after her name is 'Diana Nyad Jack Nelson.' Google 'Jack Nelson' and you get the same. However, Ariel Levy got her to open up in ways no one has ever done. It's the best profile ever published about her, and plenty has already been reported about a swimmer who's never been shy about selling her story.

Now, there are plenty in the swimming community who have their doubts about Nyad's truth-telling abilities. A lot of folks doubt that she really did legitimately make it, finally, on her fifth attempt, from Cuba to Florida. There are sections of the swim where her progress does indeed seem hard to believe. The word "unassisted" is murky when you're out there in the open ocean, hallucinating, with friends nearby who care deeply for you, who desperately want you to achieve your greatest dream. Maybe they did cross a line and help Nyad along. If you ask me, who cares? The woman accomplished something epic and inspiring, and if you're going to split hairs about it, then you're missing the point.

Feel free to doubt her achievement in the water all you like. But reading her words about the abuse she says she endured, it's hard to have any doubt there. Not when you read a passage like this: "With the coach, for me, it's not complicated," she said. "I've had all kinds of fantasies of being out in the woods and tying him to a tree and putting his penis on a marble slab and walking around with a hatchet and watching him cry and plead, and I'd say 'Oh, remember me? Remember when I was crying? You didn't seem to care too much about my feelings.' And then leaving him to bleed to death."

Those are words of imagined revenge for sins that run deeper than death. Read that again, and ask yourself if that sounds like a person who's lying?

So, was Jack Nelson ever questioned about all this? He was. Back in 2007, 43 years after the abuse allegedly began, Nelson was questioned by the Ft. Lauderdale police. He denied everything. His explanation? Nyad had said she "wanted to be a writer, and wanted to have the ability to write things that were not true and make people believe them."

Which is a clever and stunningly insulting way of saying: the girl is a liar. Apparently, having aspirations to write fiction makes a person inherently a liar who will make up horrible things about someone just because... well, just because that's what writers do, right?

Jack Nelson is now 82 years old and suffering from advanced Alzheimer's. If his 50-year-old abuse of Nyad is true, then he's gotten away with it.

But some things you can never out swim.

The Afterlife of Perfection

Misty Hyman and the business of inspiration...  Because I'm an eternal swim geek, with a self-absorbed soft spot for 200 flyers, Misty Hyman's magical race back at the 2000 Sydney Games has always been a swim of deep fascination for me. Forced to name my favorite all-time Olympic moment, that's my pick. It was more a miracle than Lezak's anchor in Beijing; it was harder to fathom than Phelps's impossible touch in the 100 fly at those same Games. Argue that all you like, that's the beauty of comparing such moments. There are no right answers, only frozen-in-time memories.

Maybe it's because I was there, seated at the elbow of a squealing Rowdy Gaines in the broadcast booth. I was a PA for NBC Olympics, assigned to scribble notes and splits for the most colorful voice of our sport, just two years removed from competition myself, and deeply conflicted over the pale, out-of-shape network staffer that I'd become.

Or maybe it's because she was swimming my event. (Or, more accurately, I had swum her event...) I had the same dream, visualized it daily for years on end, and had come up short. Three long distant seconds short in Atlanta, to be exact. The vicarious envy surely runs deep.

But who needs navel-gazing personal connections to remember a moment like that? It comes down to one thing: I was inspired. And if you have a pulse, and any interest in the Olympics at all, so were you.

Misty Hyman's 200 fly in Sydney falls in a select category of performance that can transcend the performer's life. Call it the Afterlife of Olympic Upsets. You won't find a Phelps or a Franklin or a Coughlin at this particular party. Those were favorites who did what was expected of them. And good for them. Their talents are outside the realm of relation, and so their inspiration is not the same. They're not one of us, and there's no point pretending they are.

The Upset Club exists on a different level, at a height where it almost feels possible to reach. That's also an illusion, of course. The Misty Hymans and Jason Lezaks of the world were also filled with otherworldly talent, but on the big Olympic stage, they were more David than Goliath. And so, when they step from that stage and hang up the goggles, we want to hear about it. A lot. Folks will line up and pay for the privilege to hear how they did it.

It can become a career in itself.

This has always troubled me. Does achieving something so magnificent, so epic, mean that the rest of life can become a frozen recitation of that moment?

I caught up with Misty recently and asked her about it. When we spoke on the phone, I brought up the example of Billy Mills - one of the founding members of this select club. Back at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, Mills ran to gold on the track in the 10,000 meters. It was such a stunning upset that the first words he heard when he crossed the finish line were: "Who are you?" The nearest official had no idea who Mills was; no one had given him a second thought.

I explained to Misty how I used to have that "Who are you?" quote up on my bulletin board while I was training for the '96 Games. I went on to mention how, years later, when I worked on an NBC profile of Mills, I was disheartened to discover that his life since seemed to be one of endless repetition, sharing his Olympic triumph ad nauseam with countless audiences. I trailed off and asked Misty if she thought there was something just, I don't know...

"Tragic and sad?" she asked with a laugh. "Yeah, maybe. But there's also a lot more to it."

We proceeded to talk about her own journey into the business of inspiration. Each year she delivers over 30 talks to a wide variety of audiences - from elementary schools to nursing homes; from corporate leaders to women in prison. She shares her story, her moment, and tries to relate it to the lives and the dreams of her audience. She is there to inspire them. There is nothing sad or tragic about it. But at first, it didn't feel that way.

"Back in 2002 or 2003, I was almost embarrassed to be doing it," she remembers. "I told myself 'you're singing Glory Days, it's time to hang it up and move on.'"

And so she did. She went off and got her MBA in hospitality and hotel management. She spent some time working in the 'real world'; she gained some perspective far from the pool. But folks still wanted to hear her story. Like it or not, it remained her public identity. So, instead of fighting it, she embraced it. She joined the National Speakers Association and learned about the industry of inspiration. It started to feel like a lot more than Glory Days.

"Now I have eight to ten vignettes," she explains. "Things like Teamwork and Goal Setting and Innovation. The Underdog Story and how sports is the best illustration of human potential. I usually pair three or four of these, based on the audience, and all have adult and kid versions."

There's no shortage of schools and teams eager to hear from her, but she says her most fulfilling talks have come at an unlikely place: inside the walls of Arizona's Perryville Women's Prison.

"Before I spoke to these women, the Shawshank Redemption was about as close to prison as I'd ever got," she says. "I had no idea what they would think of me, this Olympian from Scottsdale, but the moment I walked through the gates, I just relaxed. They were so receptive, so kind. And so many of them had gotten there just through bad luck, or the wrong man."

After her first appearance, she became involved in a non-profit called Gina's Team, an organization devoted to providing education and self-sufficiency to incarcerated women and men throughout the country. She's been back to prison numerous times since. "The kids on swim teams, they're usually already getting the messages that I talk about," she says. "But in prisons, these are women who aren't getting those positive messages. The distance they can move up is so much greater."

Of course, pro bono talks to prisoners don't help you pay the rent, something that Hyman has learned to balance through her involvement with the Speakers Association. "You learn that you need to have a certain quota of events you'll do for free," she says. "Then you need to mix it with paid appearances."

Unsurprisingly, the best paid gigs tend to come from corporate appearances, often the hardest audiences to reach.

How do Olympic athletes, who've barely worked any real jobs, relate to corporate types, I wanted to know.

Turns out most just want to hear her Olympic story. But through her years away from the pool, she says she's found new relevance in such seemingly mundane corporate priorities like sales and marketing.

In the end, it's all storytelling - a lesson that applies to every business under the sun. It helps when your personal story to tell happens to be a do-you-believe-in-miracles moment before a billion people at the Olympic Games. Is it tragic to repeat that tale thousands of times, to make a living off of it? Well, that depends on what kind of storyteller you are.

"The farther you get from it, the more perspective you get," says Hyman. "There's a richness there. It takes on a mythological feel, even when it's something that happened in reality. It feels like something that happened outside your own reality."

What's more inspiring than that?

Assassin's Eyes

Katie Ledecky: The most fearsome swimmer since Phelps...  She always says the right things, always hits the right notes, always pays her respects. She's not bubbling with youthful joys for the moment, like her closest peer, Missy Franklin. And she's not winking and nudging and making up words like her fellow Athlete of the Year, Ryan Lochte. No, she's just getting up and getting the job done. Same as she does every morning, every race, every time the cameras are on, or off. See, Katie Ledecky is a killer. She's not going to lose a distance race that matters for about ten years.

There she was again last weekend in Los Angeles, the 16-year-old belle of the Golden Goggles ball. Ledecky collected the two awards that matter at USA Swimming's Oscars of the pool: the Race of the Year and the Athlete of the Year. Neither were in any doubt. In fact, she probably had the top three races of the year; her 400, 800, and 1500 were all superior to any other race swum by any other woman in 2013. Actually, let's go a stroke further, all three were better races than any other swim by any man, as well.

Missy Franklin might be the new fresh face of American swimming, but Katie Ledecky is its cold-blooded, I-dare-you-to-dream-of-gold heart. She may say the right things, and come across preternaturally poised in any setting, but beware what lurks beneath the surface. It's in her eyes. Or, more accurately, what's not in her eyes. Fear, for one thing. Any interest in looking back, for another. They're the eyes of an assassin.

She's aware of how good she is. You don't see the clueless humility there that you see in so many other teen phenoms. But she doesn't come across cocky about it because she's not all that impressed with herself. Not yet, anyway. She's well aware that there's a whole lot more in store. 3:59 in the 400 / 8:13 in the 800 / 15:36 in the 1500 - hot damn, those times are hard to fathom, but hearing her talk about them last weekend in L.A., those swims came across as no more than three checks on a list of goals accomplished. Ok coach, good season, on to the next one.

The night before the Golden Goggles gala, USA Swimming hosts an event called Swimming Thru the Decades. In its third year, it's presented as an intimate fireside chat with five of the all-time greats, one each from the last few decades. Rowdy moderates before a small crowd; champions share the stage and share experiences that few on earth can relate. This year it was Tracy Caulkins, Matt Biondi, Janet Evans, Lenny Krayzelburg, and Ledecky. Four old retired parents with a bucket full of gold between them, and 16-year-old Katie, seated on the far right. She didn't need to be told she belonged.

At one point in the conversation, Ledecky was asked about her range of events, how she was able to dip down in the sprints (watch out for her 100 free in the years ahead) and still manage her distance focus. Her reply: "It's not that hard. I mean, they're all just races. They're all sprints." Come again? You look at the 1500 as a "sprint"? There wasn't any irony in her voice; she hadn't been programmed to say it in coach-speak, in that first-person plural "we" speak of Phelps. She was just stating, in her matter of fact way, that the mile really is a sprint, and that's the way she'll continue to swim it.

Physiologically, she's right. Fifteen minutes of all-out exertion is indeed a sprint for the human body. It's a lot closer to the 100 free than it is a marathon. It's a few minutes of your life. A quarter of an hour, not a few hours of pain and agony. It's about 2% of an Ironman. How can that be called a "distance" event?

Mentally, of course, she sounds insane. The mile is the distance event in our sport. So much so, that in all their brain-dead wisdom, it's deemed too far for inclusion as a women's event in the Olympics. The ladies can take the 800 in the pool, but hold up on that crazy mile... Right, IOC?

Imagine how baffled Katie Ledecky must be by this fact. The men get to race for Olympic gold in the 1500, but not women? It's so ludicrous that it's not worth lamenting. In any case, Ledecky will probably not let that keep her from collecting five gold medals in Rio. We know two gold are all but a given. All due respect for the game racing of Denmark's Lotte Friis, but there is no chance anyone is beating Ledecky in the 400 or 800 anytime soon. I'm betting that she also wins the 200 in Rio. It's there for the taking. No one, including Franklin, is showing the talent right now to swim away with that race in the coming years. Ledecky is also going to be among the top four American women in the 100 free over the next few years. This means that if the American women manage to race to the top of the podium in the free relays (and there's no reason they shouldn't), then Ledecky will leave Rio with five gold.

Missy Franklin will probably win five too, taking both backstrokes and swimming key legs on the three relays. The 200 free will be their showdown, the race where the two best female swimmers on earth decide who's the Alpha Cat of aquatics.

That will be the story of Rio, far outpacing the Michael 2.0 comeback frenzy. Speaking of which, you've seen those assassin's eyes before, remember? Every time Phelps stood behind the blocks with that hangman's gaze... There wasn't fear, there wasn't doubt, and there was no thought of yesterday. There was only the killer, about to pull the trigger.

That's how Katie Ledecky looks these days.

Note from the Underground

Cap & Goggles resurfaces... with Under Water news...  It's been awhile. How have you been? Back hard at work, I hope. Back to training or coaching or working away wherever it is you call home... My apologies for the extended silence. Last I wrote, two months ago, it was about a young stud sprinter named Caleb Dressel. You might have noticed he's gotten a bit faster since then.

What's happened since? Well, 64-year-old Diana Nyad swam from Cuba to Florida. Or did she? It seems a great many in the open water community have their doubts about the swim's legitimacy. Seems the term "unassisted" is rather murky when you're out in the middle of the sea, hallucinating about the Wizard of Oz and the Taj Mahal, with shark divers surrounding you, and support staff shouting from their boats through the darkness. Assisted or not, if a 64-year-old lady is hardcore enough to trip out on the Yellow Brick Road while stroking through treacherous waters for two days, then let her have the glory and the Oprah blessings. Like all true swimmers, Nyad strikes me as rather demented, obsessive, and more than a little bit loony after all that time with her face in the water.

Speaking of which, that probably describes most of my friends, and yours truly. See, I've been spending some time in the heart of darkness depths myself lately: writing something called Under Water. It's a crime novel. A private eye novel, to be precise. The first in a series, one hopes. It will come as no surprise that it centers around the world of swimming, around the darkest depths of our sport. In the spirit of the genre, you'll find all the violence and sex and drugs and secrets that keep the pages turning.

It's been about a year in the making; over the last few months, it's swallowed up all other writing time. Hence, the silence on this site. But now it's about time to come up for air. Our hero's name is Duck Darley, tortured private eye and lifelong swimmer. I hope you like him.

Stay tuned...

Biondi, But Better

Meet Caleb Dressel, the next great American sprinter...  He's always been the fastest. Every year, since he was 11-years-old, he's been the fastest 50 freestyler in America for his age. Click through USA Swimming's Top 16 Archive and see for yourself. At 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, there's Caleb Dressel at the top of the 50 rankings,  the fastest boy in the land. Now he's 16, and he's not just the fastest among his peers, he's accelerated into a new orbit. No 16-year-old has ever been faster.

Caleb Dressel's times last week in Irvine, CA at the Speedo Junior National Championships make one thing very clear: In three years, this is a kid who is going to be a member of the U.S. Olympic Team in Rio. He'll be 19 then; the same age as Anthony Ervin back when he won gold in the 50 at the 2000 Sydney Games. Dressel could do the same in Rio.

Take a look at his current best times at age 16: 50 Free - 22.39 / 100 Free - 49.28 / 200 Free - 1:48.64 / 100 Fly - 53.31. With the exception of the fly, every one of those times is a NAG record by a large margin. His 50 free knocked 4-tenths off the old mark. In the 100 free, he demolished Joe Hudepohl's old record by almost a full second. (That record stood for 23 years; Hudepohl you might recall was a teenage Olympian himself, a member of the men's 4x100 free relay back in '92, in Barcelona...) In the 200 Free, he slashed about a second off of Ian Crocker's mark, set back in 1998.

With that arsenal of events, does he remind you of anyone? There's only one, really, who should come to mind. His name is Matt Biondi. He's arguably the best freestyler in American history. He was inarguably the world's best swimmer of his generation. At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, those were his events: the three freestyles and the 100 fly, plus all the relays. In Seoul, Biondi owned the 50 and the 100 and all three relays for five gold. In the 100 fly and 200 free, well, he should have won those too. In the fly, he famously coasted into the finish and allowed Surinam's (and Florida's) Anthony Nesty to charge past him in the final stroke, to take gold by one 1/100th. In the 200 free, he dominated for 180 meters, until his considerable draft allowed a smart racing Aussie named Duncan Armstrong to sweep by him for gold. Biondi grabbed the bronze in that one, rounding out an Olympic campaign that has been surpassed by only two men - Spitz and Phelps.

For most of his young swimming life, Dressel has been making his mark mostly as a pure sprinter. But this year, he evolved with the range of a new Biondi in the making. His 1:48.6 in the 200 free might have surprised him more than anyone. It also surely had every top college coach salivating. As if they weren't already. When Dressel arrives on some lucky campus in the fall of 2014, he will bring the potential for rare dominance at the NCAAs. Only two men have managed to sweep the 50, 100, and 200 free at NCs. Biondi is one; the other is Michigan and Brazilian great Gustavo Borges.

Gus, like Caleb, came from Bolles, down in Jacksonville, Florida. That's where I graduated high school, so the bias is extreme. But so is the evidence. It's the best high school swimming program on planet earth, and that's never been more evident than this year, when Dressel was just one of a collection of superstars, including Ryan Murphy, Joseph Schooling, and Dressel's buddy and close rival, Santo Condorelli.

In Irvine at Juniors, Dressel battled the 18-year-old Condorelli head to head in the 50 and the 100. Dressel got him in the 100, but in the 50 final, he added a few tenths onto his record-breaking prelims time, and Condorelli took the Junior title.

That misstep in finals showed that Dressel still has some learning to do. In both the 50 and the 100, he was faster in prelims. In the 100, it appears he swam a bit recklessly over the first half. (If you flip in 23.1, you really should be under 49...) And in the 200, he reversed that prelim-peak trend. He swam too leisurely in his 200 heat and wound up in the B-final -- where he smoked the field and broke the meet record, with a time that would have easily won the big final.

But so much for that. Juniors is the time and the place to learn from these mistakes. And he will. Or he better. Because now the pressure's on. Dressel is not just an age group record-setting phenom anymore. He's raced his way into Olympic conversation.

Hell, a blogger is already making wild comparisons to Matt Biondi.

A Tale of Two Genders

The American women have never been stronger... As for the U.S. men? They're feeling some pain in a post-Phelps universe...  They accounted for ten gold medals between them. Six for Missy; Four for Katie. Setting aside the sprints, these two ladies own the long axis. When it comes to freestyle and backstroke, these two teenagers (combined age, 34) are already the two best in history. Missy doesn't yet have the 100 back world record, and Katie didn't quite break the suit-assisted world record in the 400 free, but even so, they're both already in uncharted territory.

Expect them to be the face of Team USA in Rio. Not just among the swimmers, but among the entire American delegation. Here's an early bet that it's Missy Franklin and Katie Ledecky who grace the cover of Sports Illustrated in their Rio Olympic issue.

They lead a cast of American women that might be the best ever. They have the Hall of Fame veterans (Coughlin, Vollmer, etc.); they have the relay depth (winning all three in Barcelona); and of course they have the young superstars. And in Barcelona they were also missing two of their best - Rebecca Soni and Allison Schmitt. Both will be back, and now both have just a bit to prove. I doubt Soni expected to see her 200 breast world record slashed so decisively. And while Schmitt had a very rough meet in Indy, her times from London would still place her on top of podiums and on the relays.

All in all, these are sunny days for the women of Team USA. As for the men, let's just say there are a few shadows. The longest of all, of course, is the absence of Michael Phelps. It's a forgone conclusion that he's coming back. The public hedging has actually become quite boring. Not worth further words or wondering. But it's overwhelmingly clear that the American men were a bit adrift without him. I can't speak to Michael's leadership backstage on the National Team, but under the spotlight of competition, he projected such swagger, such confidence, that it had to be infectious for his brothers in arms.

Without his ubiquitous presence, the American men were absent from the podium in the butterfly. (At least in the Olympic distances. All respect to Eugene Godsoe's silver in the 50, but that event has an asterisk...) The last time there were no American guys on the podium in the butterfly was... hell, does anyone even remember? Has it ever happened? Before there was Michael, there was Malchow. Before there was Malchow there was Mel.

But Phelps will fill that fly hole as soon as he returns, so hard to worry there. Of greater concern to the American contingent has to be the breaststroke. Fair to say that in Barcelona, the short axis strokes fell far short of expectations. They never so much as sniffed a breaststroke podium. No American in the final of the 50 or the 200. In the 100, Kevin Cordes and Nic Fink finished 7th and 8th, the only two men in the final who didn't break 1:00.

Cordes and Fink, these are two big young talents with promising futures. As long as Barcelona didn't break their spirits. As Kevin Cordes returns to Arizona for his junior year, that has to be a concern for his coaches. Until last week, Cordes had enjoyed a turbulence-free ascent to top of the breaststroke ranks. His short course times last spring were mind-boggling. Many called his 1:48 200 yard breast the greatest swim in NCAA history, including yours truly. Unfortunately, his international debut on the big boys stage fell far short of expectations. No sense pouring salt into surely still festering wounds, but we'll see how he responds to this considerable setback.

The guys are well stocked in the IMs, with Lochte and the rise of Chase Kalisz, and the presumed return to form of Tyler Clary. And despite missing the top of the podium in Barcelona, the freestyle events appear plenty loaded with talent across the board. As for backstroke, Jesus, what is it about the American guys and backstroke? It never seems to miss a beat. Another gold-silver finish in the 100; another victory in the 200. Why is this specific stroke so completely dominated by generation after generation of Americans? Perhaps a subject for a future post...

But for now, back to Barcelona and the wider take aways. Long axis strokes among the U.S. women: A+... Short axis strokes among the U.S. men: C-.

Not that anyone's keeping score...

The Yanks vs. The Francs

In Barcelona, there's no one louder than the rabid French fans... And there's no one they like baiting more than the mighty Americans... "A-mer-ica! A-mer-ica!" went the chant. The four Frenchmen stood behind the blocks, ripped with arms raised, victorious again in the men's 4 x 100 free relay. The four Americans stood a lane away, stunned. None more so than Jimmy Feigen, the anchor who'd just dropped an underachieving split on the end and relinquished a four-tenth lead over the final leg. Somewhere in the stands, with a boot attached to his right foot, Michael Phelps was not smiling.

Before the race, NBC ran a feature about this relay of relays. Ever since 2008, and maybe well before that, it's been the marquee event of every Olympics and World Championships. The feature included sound bytes from Nathan Adrian and Ryan Lochte and Matt Grevers, all feeding the frenzy of anticipation. Maybe it's because this is the one relay that the Americans don't have a stranglehold on, or maybe it's just because every 4 x 100 free relay turns out to be so epic.

Whatever it is, this is the race that the biggest of the big boys want to win the most. And now the French have both Olympic and World Champ bragging rights. They're not shy about it.

Never a nation known for its humility or self-awareness, the French fans in Barcelona are sinking their teeth into every opportunity to taunt their American rivals. It's a short trip south to Spain, and they're out in full force, dominating the atmosphere with their support of their aquatic countrymen and women.

While the Americans aren't exactly known for those humble, self-aware qualities either, they can be forgiven for maybe being just a bit baffled by the big talking French. Much as I hate the nationalism it implies, take a look at the current medal counts. It's a two-horse race between the Americans and the Chinese, with the rest of the world well back from those two superpowers. France currently sits in 8th in total medals, with a grand total of 6 -- that relay; Yannick Agnel's 200 free; and four bronze, one of which was in the men's 50 fly, which isn't really an event, despite its unfortunate inclusion at Worlds.

But do the totals really matter? As those 50s of the strokes prove, all events are not created equal, and France is stepping up in the ones that receive top billing above the marquee. First, there's that 4 x 100 free relay. Then there's Agnel in the 200 free. You can debate it all you like, but I've always been of the opinion that the best swimmer in the pool is the one who wins the 200 free. This is true for both men and women. Whether you're talking about Missy Franklin or Michael Phelps or Ryan Lochte or Ian Thorpe -- the 200 free is the domain of superstars. I'm not sure you can be considered truly great until you've got that one on your event card. So, score that one for Team France too.

And then there's the 50 free. It doesn't get any more elemental than that. Who's the fastest human being in water? The man who wins the 50 free. Tomorrow it will be decided in the fastest field in history. The Americans and the French own four of the top five seeds. In the middle, tied for 3rd in the semis with Nathan Adrian, is Brazil's Cesar Cielo, the world record holder.

Even without the Yank vs. Franc rivalry, this is going to be 21 seconds of pure swimming joy tomorrow. In one corner, wearing red, white, and blue, it's defending Olympic champion Florent Manadou and his former brother-in-law, Fred Bousquet, who also happens to be the former world record holder. In the other corner, also in red, white, and blue, but with a dash of stars and stripes, it's the greatest story in swimming, 32-year-old Anthony Ervin and his Cal teammate, and defending Olympic champ in the 100 fee, Nathan Adrian. And then there's Cielo, the fastest man ever, and Russia's Vlad Morozov, USC's NCAA sprint king... all of whom could race to gold.

Whew. You got all that? Good luck to the folks at NBC, trying to untangle those story lines in a thirty second tease before tomorrow's race. But why complicate it with a Brazilian champion or a speedy upstart Russian? Why not distill the race down to its base level nationalistic drama?

The French, ever arrogant, ever proud, now proving their big talk with big time performances in the biggest races... Versus the Americans, forever the world's standard of excellence in the swimming pool. It's up to two men, Anthony Ervin and Nathan Adrian, a pair of Berkeley-bred definitions of the American Dream, to silence those frenzied French fans... or be drowned out again with those chants:

"A-mer-ica! A-mer-ica!"

Breaking Badly, a Story of Meth and Medals

The drug-fueled descent of Scottie Miller, Aussie butterfly great...  He was once the most talented flyer on earth. His long flowing stroke won him Olympic silver in the 100 fly at the 1996 Olympics. He added a bronze on the Aussie's 4 x 100 medley relay at those same Games. His butterfly leg was the one that put them on the podium. Scottie Miller was one of those guys who had the world by the balls when he was 21. His talent in the water was matched by matinee idol good looks. The ladies loved him. He married a stunning blonde TV personality.

And then he began to snort and pop and smoke it all away. The downfall of this one-time champion reads like an E! True Hollywood Story. He was a swimmer's version of a child star who couldn't cope with life out of the spotlight, who found solace in very hard partying, and then drifted further into the abyss and started selling the drugs he was doing.

Miller has been playing on the shady side of the street for some time now. Four years ago he was arrested on Ecstasy charges, when police found the drugs, a pill press machine and almost a quarter million in cash at a storage facility belonging to Miller in Sydney. After a guilty plea, he somehow he got off without jail time, presumably after serving up names of his connections. He served 100 hours community service and completed a two-year suspended sentence and promised to get his shit together. He didn't.

Last month he was arrested on suspicion of dealing meth, or as the Aussies like to call it, "ice." Then, nine days ago, on Saturday night, July 20th, he was arrested again for alleged supplying meth, this time by a cop on street patrol in the Sydney neighborhood of Potts Point.

Clearly, the guy's got some problems. And this time, it's probably going to mean jail time.

How did he fall so damn far? Reading about Miller feels personal. He was born five days after me, on February 21st, 1975. We swam the same stroke, were the exact same age, for fellow Commonwealth nations. We sat in multiple Ready Rooms together. At the '95 Pan Pacific Games (where Miller won gold in both the 100 and 200 fly) and again in Atlanta, where I swam the 200 fly in the heat before him. He was always a good bit faster, but we were contemporaries, and after the big meets end, the Canadians and the Aussies tend to stick together.

That's how it was in Atlanta. After the swimming concluded, the Aussies and the Canadians could generally be found out at the same bars, up to no good, beer to beer. Miller and I didn't really know each other, beyond the recognizing nod, but everyone knew that Miller was the one who knew where the party was. Even at 21, he had that rep. He liked to hit it hard after he stepped from those podiums, but that was okay. A lot of us did. But there's a world of difference between 'hitting it hard' the way, say Phelps or Lochte have been known to do, and hitting it to the point of dealing it.

I'm drawn to dark descents and falls from grace and demons when the music stops. You probably are too. Everyone slows down to gawk at the train wreck. But when it's a guy who once traveled in your same current, swimming the same stroke at the same time, you just want to look away.

How did it all go so recklessly wrong for Scottie Miller? Probably much like Hemingway wrote in The Sun Also Rises: "How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly."

It sounds like Miller is about to suddenly find himself behind bars. But ever since he stopped swimming butterfly, it sounds like he's been gradually headed that way all along.

The State of the Art of Distance

16-year-old Katie Ledecky and 21-year-old Sun Yang... A clinic of freestyle perfection  The two best swimmers in Barcelona only swim one stroke, and they don't have much speed. On day one of these World Championships, Katie Ledecky and Sun Yang delivered a pair of 400 freestyles that showed just how far ahead they are from the rest of the world. They won gold going away, but that's the easy part of the story. Take a look at those underwater cameras and watch their strokes beneath the surface - that's the story.

With all respect to Missy Franklin and Ryan Lochte and Ye Shiwen and any others you might think deserve that title, there are two swimmers right now that are separating themselves in historic ways from the rest of the planet: Ledecky and Sun.

Neither of them set world records today, and neither swam their best event, but that hardly matters. Actually, Ledecky did set an all-time best, if you remove those ridiculous results from the 2009 suit-silly world champs. The women's 400 record still stands from that meet, when Italy's Federica Pellegrini charged to an unnatural 3:59.15, the only other time a woman has broken four-minutes. Without "the suit", Pellegrini was probably 4:01 at best. Meaning Ledecky is now a few body lengths better than the next best woman in history in that event, which happens to be her third best event.

As for Sun Yang, 3:41.5 is impressive and all, but Ian Thorpe was a healthy second and a half faster than that thirteen years ago. It looked to me like Sun was just swimming to win. Or maybe his stroke is just so silky smooth, it looks like he's mocking everyone else. He's Alex Popov swimming longer freestyle. Remember watching Popov back in the early 90s, the way his tempo and perfect unrushed rhythm looked like he was toying with the sprinters thrashing by his side. A bit like watching Federer in his prime, or Miguel Cabrera hitting right now... Why do the great ones make it look so damn easy? Sun Yang makes it look like that. Ever seen this video of Sun's stroke on a multi-camera loop? It's like a metronome.

Ledecky looks the same way. The girl goes out hard, sure, but it's not like she's spinning her wheels. Like the great ones before her, she simply gets out there and sets the pace without fear, and says come and get me. No one will, not for a long time. The over / under right now on Ledecky's 800 freestyle later this week is 8:10. A world record is all but assured. I'm betting on 8:09. Out in 4:02, back in 4:07. Sounds reasonable, right? Reasonably insane, but reasonable.

As for Sun's mile? He's already the best ever. No time would surprise me, even as it's clear that Sun spent a good portion of his post-Olympic year on a well deserved, if not entirely appreciated victory lap. He'll win going away, even if he's in less than peak form.

And about that 'not much speed' line in the first sentence? Well, they do have a bit. These two have plenty of speed. Future world titles in the 200 free are feasible. Ledecky could soon be a player on the U.S. women's 4x100 free relay. They're both fast and young and getting faster by the day.

Let's hope that doesn't distract them from their true calling. Because right now they truly are the state of the art of distance swimming.

The Primitive Genius

Thinking behind the blocks and paralysis by analysis... It can be hard to sleep on nights like this. A day away from the World Championships, many of the greatest swimmers on earth are tossing in their Barcelona beds right about now. They're visualizing races and willing the happy thoughts. They're hyper aware of every twitch and itch of their toned bodies. They're nervous. Whether they admit it or not.

Fair enough. Big meets mean big pressure, and for a sport with so few opportunities to perform on the few stages that really matter, these are times that can crack a lot of psyches. Thousands upon thousands of hours, distilled into a few seconds or minutes of competition. What are they thinking as they stand behind those blocks, moments away from their moments of truth? Well, hopefully nothing.

In a growing field perhaps best termed the Science of Excellence, the minds and bodies of elite athletes are becoming better understood by the day. Sports Illustrated senior writer David Epstein has just published the latest entry -- The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance. SI published an excerpt in their latest issue. While the piece never addresses swimming, it's impossible not to apply his findings to our sport. Consider these lines:

"As an individual practices a skill... the mental processes involved in executing the skill move from the higher-conscious areas of the brain in the frontal lobe back to the more primitive areas that control automated processes, or skills that you can execute "without thinking." In sports, brain automation is hyper specific to a practiced skill..." 

Translation: After a certain massive amount of time spent training, hitting a 100 mph fastball or swimming 50 meters in 21 seconds becomes as thought-free as driving down the highway. That's not to say that every driver can also practice themselves into being world class competitors if only they spent as much time doing the skill as they do driving. It means that for the very best, those ultra talented souls we watch competing for gold medals, thinking is the enemy.

Easier said than done. Any coach can mutter to his athlete: don't think, just go out there and race, trust your training... We've all heard some variation of that at some point in our competitive careers. The last thing Coach Gregg Troy used to say to me before I walked off to the Ready Room at big meets was: "Who's your worst enemy?" The answer, of course, was myself. The implication being that if only I'd get out of my own way and stop thinking so damn much, then the race would take care of itself. Sometimes I'd listen and absorb that simple question and let my mind go blank. Other times the question would blow through my spinning brain, and I'd march off to the Ready Room obsessing over splits and stroke counts and goal times. Guess which races were a disaster?

I'm guessing Coach Troy never has to say that to Ryan Lochte. Because, say what you will about Lochte's intellect, and much has been unfairly said already, when the man stands behind the blocks, he is a genius. He's pure automation. His mind is clear, uncluttered and at peace, because it's operating on a frequency few athletes will ever approach. His mind and body have been so infinitely trained to execute that specific task that the frontal lobe has been utterly silenced.

Michael Phelps, of course, was the same way. Everyone remembers that blank thousand yard stare of his behind the blocks. The headphones were in, the jaw was slack, the eyes were unfocused and lost in some thought-free zone. As Epstein writes in SI, "thinking about an action is the sign of a novice."

It sounds like an oxymoron, the thoughtless, primitive genius. But there is nothing simple about it. To reach a state of transcendent performance, the first thing that must occur is the elimination of higher consciousness in the moment. And to reach that state, an athlete must think and train so much for so many years that thought ceases to exist when it matters most.

Think about that.

Third No More

David Plummer, Liz Pelton, and post Olympic redemption...  They're a part of a fraternity that no one wants to join. They've endured a circle of swimming hell that you wouldn't wish upon your worst enemies. They're the third place finishers at the U.S. Olympic Trials. You'd rather place dead last. Hell, you'd rather false start and never get wet than have to feel that particular oh-so-close pain.

Or maybe not. Maybe there's virtue in that kind of cruel heartbreak. What doesn't kill you and all... Always hated that cliché.

David Plummer and Elizabeth Pelton know how this feels all too well. Last summer in Omaha, this pair of backstroke badasses placed 3rd - three times. With Plummer feeling the pain in the 100 back and Pelton getting a double dose of third, in the 200 back and the 200 IM.

In the men's 100 back, Plummer raced to first last place in Omaha, missing the Team by .12. The guy who got his hand on the wall that much quicker, Nick Thoman, went on to win silver in London behind teammate Matt Grevers. That's how it goes in the 100 back in the U.S. With disturbing regularity, this has to be considered the deepest, hardest to make event in all of American swimming. If you make the team in the 100 back, chances are you're going to be standing on the podium at whatever international meet comes next.

Pelton faced a similar scenario. In the women's 200 back, she missed London by half a second - and the ladies who finished 1-2, Missy Franklin and Elizabeth Beisel, went on to own the Olympic podium. Yet, her third in the 200 IM was probably even more painful. In that one, she missed the Team by .25, and seemed to have her spot sewn up before Ariana Kukors managed to charge past her in the closing meters in Omaha.

I doubt Mr. Plummer or Ms. Pelton care to read those salt in the wound recaps. And nor should they. Because in the case of those two, it appears that old cliché is true. Trials heartbreak didn't kill them, and they've emerged stronger than ever.

A few weeks back at the World Champ Trials in Indy, Plummer got his hand on the wall first, ahead of those long arms of Matt Grevers, and reclaimed his spot on the U.S. National Team. If tradition serves, he'll soon be standing on a podium in Barcelona.

As for Pelton, it's clear that her third places in Omaha have already been long forgotten. At Cal last year, she took her strokes to a new level, breaking the American record in the 200 yard back at NCAAs. In Indy, she posted times that place her in some stunning company. Her 2:06.29 in the 200 back ranks her 2nd in the world right now (behind Franklin) and is the 4th fastest swim ever, not in one of those silly super-suits from '08-'09. Pelton also posted a big time 100 back, cruising well under a minute, with a 59.27, a time that puts her 4th in the world heading into Barcelona.

You know you love these stories. Everybody loves a comeback. But these aren't exactly comebacks. These two never left. They just refused to lie down. To get so close to fulfilling the ultimate swimmer's dream - an Olympic berth - is crushing on the psyche. There's no way around it. Somewhere in the core of their beings, there is a scar, and that scar isn't going away.

Yet with one year down and three to go before Rio, these two are doing right by all those other Third Placers out there. The ones who bravely shoulder swimming's version of a Purple Heart.

I wouldn't wish third at Trials on anyone, but I know who I'll be pulling for when they take their marks in the years ahead.

The Best Swimmers Are In The NBA

It's true... Too bad the spoils will never lure them to the pool...  Describe the physical gifts of your perfect swimmer. He's gotta be tall. Huge hands and feet. Must possess both explosiveness and a light touch, or feel for the sport. Oh, and he must be hyper competitive. Sound like anyone you know? Maybe the stars of last night's Game 7 of the NBA Finals?

Much has been made of Michael Phelps having the ideal swimmer's physique. As Bob Costas intoned in this NBC feature from 2008, 'if you were to build the perfect swimmer, the finished product would look just like this.' Ok, fair enough. No arguing with the results. But what if his opponent was nine inches taller; had even bigger 'dinner plate' sized hands; size 16 feet; and a childhood of equal aquatic immersion.

Like, say Tim Duncan? You probably already know the story about how Spurs' legend Tim Duncan was a swimmer first, growing up in St. Croix. If not, here's a quick refresher. He was a very good one. A 200 and 400 freestyler who had serious Olympic potential. His sister, Tricia, was an Olympian in 1988. But then Hurricane Hugo destroyed his swim team's pool, and the 14-year-old Duncan turned to hoops. Safe to say he made the right choice. Over the course of his 16-year NBA career, Duncan has amassed a net worth of around $200 million. Phelps is a rich man, but he will never get anywhere close to that figure. In fact, by NBA standards, he's paid somewhere in the range of a bench-riding role player.

Is that just? Well, if swimmers could fill arenas 82 times a year, their earning potential might be a different story. But that's not really the point. The point is that many NBA stars could very likely translate their physical gifts into world class performance in the swimming pool. And the few who spent much time on swim teams growing up have proven that conclusively.

Here's another: Kris Humphries. Until last month, Humphries was the National Age Group record holder in the 10 & under boys 100 freestyle. That record was eclipsed by young Winn Aung of the Redding Swim Team back in May, and Aung again lowered it this week. But Humphries' time of 1:02.39 stood for 18 years, since 1995. He was born the same year as Phelps, and he was a faster freestyler when they were both record-setting boys. Last year, the Brooklyn Nets power forward earned $12 million. Unlike his marriage, it appears Humphries made a wise choice in sport.

Like Duncan, Humphries also had a sister who went on to compete in the pool at a world class level. His sister Kaela was a standout swimmer at Texas during her college years. But alas, their brothers would be bound for bigger crowds and bigger salaries in the big time world of the NBA.

And just to round out the trend with a third example, does anyone remember sharpshooter Kiki Vandeweghe? Back in the 80s, he was a 20-point a night star with the Nuggets and Trail Blazers, even a few with the Knicks towards the end of his career. Vandeweghe was also recently the head coach and GM of the New Jersey Nets before their move to Brooklyn. But before that decorated NBA career, Vandeweghe was a NAG-record setting young swimmer. For many years, Vandeweghe was the National Age Group record holder in the 10 & under boys 50 butterfly. He went 31.70 in that event when he was 10 - back in 1968!

Unfortunately, swimming's loss was basketball's gain. He swam for the Santa Monica Swim Club and the Culver City Swim Club in L.A. through the late 60s and early 70s, and he was a stud in the pool right up until high school. In this long ago story from the Harvard Crimson, here's what Vandeweghe had to say about his decision to switch sports: "I left swimming for several reasons. One of them was the limited number of scholarships available in the sport. I decided early it was my own responsibility to pay for college, and I thought a basketball scholarship might allow me to do that. My parents encouraged us to do our very best in our chosen sport, so rather than become just so-so at both. I decided to concentrate on basketball."

Again, wise choice. But it is rather tragic to consider all the immense talent that has fled the pool over the years for more promising, or more lucrative futures in richer sports.

It's a beautiful thing to watch Tim Duncan play basketball on the biggest stage of all. But how beautiful to consider what it might have been like to watch him win untold gold at some long ago Games... If only for Hurricane Hugo.

The Boy in the Bubble

Michael Andrew, child swim star... A "pro" at age 14...  I always followed the kid by the numbers, the times. Those cartoon crazy swims he posted when he was 10, 11, 12, 13, and now 14 - they've always been eye-popping. I didn't know anything else about him, but the numbers were enough. He was a swimmer on the rise. Perhaps the Next One. Maybe in our desperate, impatient search for the next Phelps, the kid was already upon us. Maybe Michael Andrew will go on to win nine gold medals at some far off Games and make Michael the official sacred name of swimming royalty. Maybe he will... but let's hold up for a second: He hasn't done anything yet.

By anything, I mean a World Record, I mean an Olympic berth, I mean a top world ranking. I mean the things that lead a young phenom to turn pro because he is so good, so young that he feels it's impossible to resist the opportunities on the table. Phelps was a World Record holder and already a seasoned Olympian when he turned pro at 16. Missy Franklin collected five Olympic gold medals in high school, and she decided not to turn pro. Michael Andrew has set eleven National Age Group records in his short career, and yesterday his parents decided that this was promising enough for their son to turn pro.

Let me now say what the rest of the swimming community is apparently unable to utter publicly: This is a wildly premature and inappropriate decision. It's deeply messed up. It reveals so many layers of American madness that one hardly knows where to begin. But before we do, let's get one thing clear up front: Michael Andrew, the 14 year old boy, is in no way being judged or criticized for this decision. The kid is 14. He lives at home in Kansas. He goes to school at home. He goes to practice at home, in his backyard, two-lane swimming pool. His father is his coach. His mother, his teacher. He is a fantastically talented boy trapped in a bubble of his parents' ambition. I used to be in awe of his age group times. Now that awe remains, along with a heavy dose of sympathy for the position this kid's parents have put him in.

Let's get to the layers of madness:

First, that this is even a decision at all. The fact that a brilliantly talented young athlete should even have to choose between an education and an endorsement is beyond absurd. Does anyone care if Michael Andrew, or anyone else, makes a few bucks from a random supplement company as he trains for greatness? Would that be so against the ideals of the holy NCAA? This is so marco mad that it hardly warrants further ranting. We shouldn't even be having this discussion.

But since we are, let's dig a little further into the company at the heart of all this. Michael Andrew is now a "pro" swimmer because he accepted an endorsement deal from a company called P2 Life, a "performance nutrition" company founded less than two years ago. Its founder and CEO is a guy named Tim Shead. He's a Masters superstar, with 43 Masters world records to his name; his corporate bio also states that he's a "past US National Head Coach", but I can't seem to find where or when this occurred. That corporate website also states that "40% of the U.S. Men's Olympic Swimming Team were active users of P2 products." If this is the case, I'd love to know who they are, and why they aren't signed up for lucrative endorsement deals with Mr. Shead.

In the absence of those actual Olympians, P2 signed a 14-year-old age group record holder instead. Presumably because the upside was so great, and they were getting in on the ground floor... which in start-up language means cheap. Whatever they paid the Andrew family, one can be fairly certain it does not add up to the price of a four-year college scholarship. Though that's clearly not a priority for young Michael. In his webcast interview with Garrett McCaffrey today, Andrew appeared to brush off the issue of higher education. He's being home-schooled after all, so high school competition isn't even a thought, and on the subject of college, he indicated that his mom was just finishing up some online courses, and that path sounded just fine to him right now. (Again, no judgement on young Andrew, he's only doing what he's being told, what he knows...)

How about another layer of American madness? If you're great at something, all bets are off. Everything is permitted. When I first read this news this morning, I tried to find some relatable analogy in other sports. The comparison with Todd Marinovich, the boy in the bubble USC quarterback, is too easy and dated. It was twenty-five years ago, and sure the kid had some similarities - ie boundary-less fathers intent on building their sons into the perfect athletic specimens in their favorite sports. But at least Marinovch had the chance to go to college -and win the Rose Bowl - before he unraveled with too much freedom and blow and weed and punk rock.

A better analogy is what's going on in surf and skating. Friends who follow these sports quickly pointed out that signing young groms and skate rats is standard practice these days. I was fed names like Kolohe Andino and Kanoa Igarashi and Jack Robinson and John John Florence -- young rippers who were sponsored and successful in their early teens. Maybe Michael Andrew fits in that mold, I thought. Maybe swimming's just far behind the cooler 'action' sports, where young studs aren't bothered by silly things like NCAA eligibility. This would be nice. I wish I could believe it. But here's the difference - there is visual value in watching young surfers and skaters do their thing. It's exciting to see, and companies like Billabong and Quiksilver righty recognize the value in getting their gear on these kids. But is that true with young swimmers? I watched Michael Andrew's latest NAG record on SwimSwam - a blistering 23.4 in the 50 free at some meet in Iowa - and it was impressive enough, but would I watch it again? Probably not. Would I rather watch a 14-year-old rip up a high blue wave? No question. And this is coming from a confirmed swim geek who doesn't surf without getting pinned to the ocean bottom after two wobbling seconds atop the board.

I'd love to know P2's business plan when it comes to their newest sponsor, young Andrew. I'd also love to know of any other companies lining up with potential deals in the works. Because if Michael Andrew is as insanely talented as it seems, here's the best case scenario three years from now: He makes the 4x100 free relay in Rio. He places 4th or 5th or 6th in the 100 free at 2016 Trials in Omaha. That's about as good as I can see for the kid who'll be 17 by that time. It would be an incredible accomplishment. I'm fairly confident in stating that he'd be the youngest member of that prestigious relay in history. It would set him up for a huge Games four years later in 2020, in a city yet to be named. If he manages to do that, then that might be a fine time to roll the dice and turn pro. But to do it now? Three years before that big maybe? It defies reason.

Of course, this isn't about reason, is it? It's about parents smelling greatness in the bedroom across the hall. The kind of greatness that means a free ticket to travel the world. The kind of talent that forces you to believe the hype and sign on the dotted line...

Here's hoping that it all works out for the amazing Michael Andrew. Here's hoping that he hasn't been sabotaged before he's even begun.

Michael Phelps is Coming Back

Is it a rumor? Yes. Is it probably true? Also, yes.  Well, that didn't take long. It's been less than a year since London. A year of luxurious victory lapping on golf courses and at poker tables across the world... One could get used to that life of competitive leisure. Or maybe not. Maybe it doesn't take all that long to get bored of such diversions. Because here's the word:

Michael Phelps is about to launch a comeback. He'll soon be returning to training; in fact, he's rumored to be arriving in Colorado Springs, at the Olympic Training Center, in the next few days. Maybe he won't show. Perhaps he'll read these publicized rumors and get spooked and insist that he's still happily retired on the links. The man has nothing to prove to anyone. He's the greatest Olympian of all time, regardless of whether or not he ever touches chlorinated water again.

However, these rumors didn't just come out of thin air. The upper reaches of the swimming world are swirling with the chatter. It's like the CIA intercepting red flag chatter across Islamic websites. It might be nothing, it might be just talk, but when there's enough of it, you have to take it seriously. That's what's going right now in swimming's version of the CIA. The folks in-the-know, the top coaches and swimmers, the ones just a degree or two removed from Phelps himself, they're all talking about it.

If I hadn't confirmed the likelihood of these reports, I wouldn't be writing about it. This isn't April Fool's Day again. It's May 17, 2013, just ten months removed from Phelps's final race in London.

After that race, Phelps did indeed file his official retirement papers. Many don't. Aaron Peirsol didn't, back when he hung up his goggles. Plenty of "retired" former greats leave the door open that way. It means they can return to competition anytime they damn well please. Phelps wasn't like that. Last summer it seems he really did truly believe he was done. Or maybe he knew no one would believe him until he made it official with FINA. In any case, because he filed those retirement papers, he won't be competing anytime this summer. He'll need nine months to give birth to this comeback. That's how long it takes to come out of retirement, before you're allowed to compete in any USA Swimming or FINA sanctioned competition. Plenty of time for those comeback notions to gestate.

It's easy to forget how hard it is to live and train like an Olympic champion. Who knows, Phelps may indeed come back next week. He may try to be quiet about it, and slip back into competitive waters to see how it feels. And he may scratch that itch for a month or two before he realizes how satisfied he was in repose, on the links and at the poker table. Then it will be back to caring about making par and hitting the flush on 5th Street.

These are nice pastimes. Sometimes, with just the right shot or luck of the draw, there will be moments when that spike of competitive adrenaline feels almost as good as the real thing.

But can anything ever really compare to gold around your neck and a national anthem played in your honor?

Pride or Prejudice?

Why aren't there more out swimmers?  Blame it on the big city. The buried journalist inside of me knew that Jason Collins's coming out party was big news. The first out gay athlete in a major professional sport... a guy still immersed in a proud 12-year NBA career. That's pretty major. Big enough for Sports Illustrated to stop the presses and splash Collins on its cover. So then why did it feel like it shouldn't have been any news at all?

Maybe because living in a place like New York, and having plenty of gay friends and colleagues, makes this "announcement" sound like a quaint little Victorian era scandal. If you have a problem with an athlete's sexuality, or anyone's sexuality for that matter, I feel sorry for you. No, really.

I don't care who Jason Collins goes to bed with any more than who Kobe Bryant cheats with. Or Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods or any of the other fine moral-free manly role models we know and love. Those three heterosexual gentlemen above are, by virtually every account I've heard, horrible human beings. Spiteful egomaniacs incapable of fidelity or humility. Yet, when any one of them is on the court or the links, I can't take my eyes off of them. They're geniuses at what they do, and it's a beautiful thing to behold. Jason Collins, on the other hand, sounds like a damn good guy, but I can't say I've ever watched a single minute of him playing basketball.

Why can't we separate the two? Well, because this is sex we're talking about, and there's nothing simple about that. Especially not when God gets involved...

But enough about God. I'm pretty sure he's cool with Jason Collins. No, that's not true. I'm quite positive He couldn't give two shits about Jason Collins and his attraction to men. In that, at least, the Big Man and I are on the same page. I don't care either.

It would just be nice if athletes in our sport could be carelessly open about their preferences too. After all, this is a sport with more than its share of past gay champions. Canada's Mark Tewksbury and Australia's Daniel Kowalski, to name two terrific role models. And of course, Bruce Hayes, of '84 Olympic fame. All due respect to Jason Lezak, but Hayes still might have you beat for the greatest relay leg ever swum. If it's before your era, take a look.

Unfortunately, all those guys came out a few years after they hung up their goggles. That's the way it usually goes. Just stay back in that closet until the cameras go away, then it will be a little safer. Problem is, that's when no one's paying attention. No one, like say, a teenage kid struggling with suicidal thoughts, adrift and depressed in some small God-fearing close-minded town.

I wish I could send my younger self this message of tolerance. That 16-year-old self trapped in an all-boys Catholic school, longing to get out of there, hormones raging, wanting to hook up with girls more than anything else on earth - and being fearful and distrustful of any guy who didn't feel the same way. That's called homophobia. Fearing what you can't understand. Treating someone as different, as lesser, because they don't have the same "natural" urges as you do.

It's easy to act tolerant and holier-than-thou when you're fully formed and comfortable in your own skin, but it's easy to forget how hard it was as a kid. When everyone's just trying to figure their shit out... I can only imagine how hard it is for the guys and girls who, through no fault of their own, want something different with their sex lives.

With swimmers, it might be even more difficult. This is a sport where every athlete is mostly naked, invariably ripped, wet, and usually panting. The sexuality of it is impossible to ignore. That can be troublesome. Especially for those struggling with attractions that aren't exactly embraced inside every locker room.

Maybe Jason Collins has opened the door for countless other closeted pro athletes to come forward now without fear. It would be nice if some brave Olympic swimmers decide to join him in proud solidarity.

But it will be really nice when no one cares at all.

The Alternate Reality of Ryan Lochte

Who's missing from the less than real life of "What Would Ryan Lochte Do?" Only most of the folks responsible for his success as a swimmer... 

Did you watch the premier? If so, I'm betting you tuned in with a similar mix of dread and curious amusement and perhaps some smug schadenfreude. That seemed to be the general consensus going in. With that cringe-worthy promo and the viral video of those Fox news anchors cracking up at Lochte's expense post-interview... Which isn't to say that interview wasn't funny, in a sweet-Jesus-where-is-his-media-coach? sort of way. But by the time the show actually aired last night, it seems safe to say the swimming world was ready for an uncomfortable train wreck.

But was it? I can't name a single reality show I've ever watched with any interest or regularity, so I'm the wrong person to rate it. Maybe it will catch with an inexplicable Kardashian-ness, or maybe it will produce a collective yawn from viewers needing more than Lochte's frequently shirtless torso and ever twinkling eyes. All I can say is that I watched a show starring a sweet and simple man who will always do right by his friends and family. I don't find that particularly compelling, but then watching that entire reality genre has always felt like leeches were attached to my scalp, sucking away brain cells in soulless swallows.

Yet, from a swimmer's perspective, there was something very interesting about the show: who was missing. In a show reputedly about Lochte's orbit of play hard, train hard priorities, there are some glaring discrepancies. Maybe all of Lochte's play pals signed up to star alongside their famous friend, but the inner circle behind his training - the ones really responsible for making him successful enough for his own show, they're nowhere to be seen.

You won't find Coach Gregg Troy anywhere on this show. Despite the fact that, outside of Locthe's parents, he's been the most influential reality in Ryan's life for the last decade. You won't find Coach Troy's wise lieutenants, Martyn Wilby and Anthony Nesty, on any episode either. Two coaches who've been on hand every step of the way in Lochte's rise. The "coach" you will find on this show is identified only as "Mike" - a young not exactly authoritative looking coach on deck. Who the hell was that? According to a Gators source, that was a (soon-to-be ex) volunteer assistant with Florida.

So, yeah, the actual swimming side of  "What Would Ryan Lochte Do?" could not be less real - or apparently, less of a priority. Fair enough, I guess; who wants to watch a swimmer, any swimmer, slog through the monotony of training that is every elite athlete's actual life?

Here's someone else who was missing from the premier: Ryan's father, Steve Lochte, the man who also coached his son through high school in Daytona. No telling if he will appear in future episodes, or if the Lochte family story line will be limited just to his mom and two sisters, but for swimmers, cutting out his coach dad feels like another glaring omission. One of my principle memories of the 2008 Games in Beijing was that moment after Lochte's national anthem, after winning his first individual Olympic gold, in the 200 back. As he stepped from the podium and began his victory march around the deck, he spotted his family in the stands and climbed up to embrace them. He reached his dad first. Caught live on NBC cameras for the world to see was a teary eyed father hugging his boy. Clear as can be, he said, "I'm so proud of you son."

Now that's reality.

"The Greatest Swimmer You've Never Seen"

Meet Siddharta Belau, the world's fastest man in water... He stands six-eight in bare bronzed feet the size of small boats. His hands are larger than Lebron's and rumored to be webbed between each finger. His flexibility could make a yogi blush. He has spent most of his waking life immersed in salt water. His name is Siddhartha Belau. He is 20-years-old and he is a better swimmer than Michael Phelps. Unless you're from a slim string of pearls called the Palau islands, in the South Pacific, you've likely never heard of him.

I didn't believe it either. When stories of this young man first reached me, I discounted them as colorful fantasy. Things like this sometimes reach your Inbox when you write a blog like this one. Consider it the swimmer's version of fish tales. Fabulist folks come lurking out of the depths with absurd stories of impossible speed and grace in the water. I heard one about a 15-year-old boy from Perth who was said to have clocked 45 seconds in the 100 meter free. Turned out the pool was 45 meters long. Heard another about a 12-year-old Amazonian girl from Argentina who was rumored to go 8:08 in the 800. Typo; it was 9:08. The stories about Belau were equally dubious at first blush, but there was something more there. The reports started to add up, from various verified sources. His legend is just reaching these shores. Soon the world will know him.

I believe Siddhartha Belau is real. And that he has broken 20 seconds in the 50 meter freestyle. Long course. He first learned butterfly at the advanced age of 14, but it's reported that he's already been 51.3 in the 100 / 1:52.6 in the 200. One of his coaches insists that he would beat Lochte in the 200 IM at Worlds this summer, if only he could make it there.

"The boy has never left the islands of Palau," says the coach, who wishes to remain anonymous. "He is deathly afraid of airplanes, he will never agree to fly. You must understand - he lives in paradise and has no wish to leave."

Another source wrote that: "Sid is a very simple boy, very pure of heart. He spends his days in the water, only emerging to eat the fish that he has speared. I do not think he has ever spent less than eight hours in the water, any day of his life. He is dry only when he sleeps."

Indeed, it appears that getting Belau to race at all was something of a challenge. Fellow Palauans have spread tales of their Aquaman since he was a child. There are stories of little Siddhartha swimming ten meters deep and catching lobster with his bare hands when he was three years old. Other islanders speak of young Sid body-surfacing alongside dolphin in the island's high clean surf. But when it came to racing up and down the pool, Belau was uninterested.

"I literally had to beg him to try swimming in the pool," says the coach. "Sid couldn't see the point. Palau has just one 50-meter pool and it is not well used. Why bother with a pool when you have the beautiful Pacific all around you? But there was a group of us, we knew what we were seeing. We knew that the only way the rest of the world would believe us is if we put the boy in the pool, and timed him at the distances you folks care about."

Belau may have expressed reluctance at first, but it appears he soon found an affinity for the still waveless waters of the pool. "Sid says he likes the meditative aspect of pool swimming," reports a friend named Ohana. "He loves to race against the clock, and hear what kinds of records he would have set, but he finds things like the Olympics funny. He feels no need to prove himself in those arenas."

Why not? I wrote that back to all of them, the kind Palauans who've taken to emailing me over these last few months. How could Siddhartha Belau not care about showing the rest of the world what he can do? His friend Ohana may have summed up the Palauan sentiment best: "Because you care, does not mean he must."

I've considered getting on a plane and finding out for myself. The invitation is there. I've asked them to send videos, something that can prove these outrageous claims. They're working on it, but this is one corner of the world where lives do not revolve around iPhones or YouTube. They say they'll have something for me soon, but on Palau-time, soon is a relative concept.

So, in the absence of evidence, I went looking for something else to back up my growing irrational faith in this elusive swim god. It turns out there might be some theories to support the likelihood of such a man. We all know the stories of Kenyan runners. The Olympic world has long pondered the question - what makes Kenyans such brilliant distance runners? Turns out there are some very good scientific reasons for their running supremacy. It's a potent mixture of genes and culture. Here's a great piece in the Atlantic that breaks down the Kenyan's special sauce.

By that rationale Kenyan runners have an awful lot in common with swimmers in the South Pacific. Just as Kenyans perfected the art of running through genetic evolution and a culture of running long ways on the open African plains, these South Pacific swimmers may have developed as the most water-evolved people on the planet. It's not so far fetched. Much has been made about Michael Phelps's upbringing, where he watched his older sisters training when he was just a boy, absorbing the sport through chlorinated osmosis on the pool deck. Well, what about upbringings like Siddhartha Belau's? A boy who was raised not on a pool deck in Baltimore, but in the clear cool waters of the South Pacific? A kid who was catching his lunch with his bare hands in 40-foot waters when he was barely out of diapers... A kid who learned his feel for the water by body-surfing with dolphin...

"He's the greatest swimmer you've never seen," says his coach.

But do you really need to see to believe?

The Bottom Line

Mike Bottom and the psychology of special... He gets you to believe. In yourself, in your talent, in your training, and importantly, in him. That's no small task, and it doesn't have much to do with what goes on in the water everyday.

18 to 22 year old boys can be a delicate lot. They won't admit to this, but it's true. Their egos are fragile and their freakishly fit bodies are hyper sensitive to the slightest turbulence in their training. Often times what they need is not a coach but a psychologist. Enter Mike Bottom, the ultimate mind coach.

Two days ago, Bottom guided Michigan back to the top, as the men raced to their first title in 18 years. Bottom's incredible accomplishments with a who's who of champion sprinters long ago established him as one of the world's great coaches, but this title does something else. It validates his Hall of Fame bona fides and transcends that old Sprint Coach label that he wore for so long. This Michigan team won it the Michigan way and the Bottom way. Which is to say they won it by dominating the distance events and swimming blazingly fast on the sprint relays. That's a dangerous combo.

They also won it with virtually no stars. With all due respect to Connor Jaeger, who posted a pair of terrific winning times in the 500 and 1650, this Michigan team was a group that won with depth and consistency, not with a few eye-popping record-shattering swims. They did post one NCAA record - a stunning 1:22.27 in the 200 medley relay that no one saw coming. But aside from Jaeger's wins and that one relay, you didn't see Michigan standing on top of the podium in any other events.

Consider the races that will be remembered at this meet. There were quite a few. USC's Vlad Morozov's staggering sprints. 17.8 on that relay, 40.7 flat start in his 100. Cal's Tom Shields, who ended his collegiate career in high style, tying Phelps's small pool record in the 200 fly with that 1:39.6. And of course, Arizona's monster sophomore, Kevin Cordes, who can now officially be proclaimed America's Next Great Breaststroker. A few days ago, I posted a claim that his 49.5 100 breast split on Arizona's medley relay may have been the best college swim ever. Turns out we spoke too soon. His 1:48.6 in the 200 breast is the best college swim ever. Tell me another that compares.

All of the above guys are Pac-12 swimmers. That's where the best swimmers are. It's hard to argue with the evidence. However, Michigan had the best team. By a lot. For all the drama at the meet this year, the team race was never really close. As the pre-meet projections established, Michigan was on another level, points-wise. They won by a comfortable 73.5 points ahead of Cal. (Talk about poetic justice. Beating your old team, after losing the top job there and watching them instantly ascend to the top in your absence...) The fact is, Michigan left plenty of points on the table. That first morning, they really should have had three or four guys in the final of the 500. Instead, they put four in the B-final, with each one missing the top 8 by less than half a second. There are plenty of other examples where they could have racked up plenty more points, but no matter. They did what they had to do.

They did it because Bottom made them believers. The man grasps the science of fast swimming as much as anyone, but it's always been about more than that with Bottom's swimmers. He simply convinces his swimmers that they're the special ones. Simply - talk about the wrong adverb... There is nothing simple about it. This is high stakes coaching. Because all you need is one swimmer to call bullshit, and start spreading seeds of doubt among his teammates, and all those inspiring whispers cease to matter. It's easier for coaches to place all their faith in a system. That gives everyone deniability. You present a program that's worked before - with the right amount of yardage and speed work, the right arc to a season, the right carefully plotted taper, and you let the end take care of itself. That makes sense, and it does work, but Bottom has always played for higher stakes.

He's the coach who creates unshakeable confidence in his swimmers, convincing them of their specialness, of their destiny. It doesn't always turn out that way. But when that promised specialness all works out in the end, that's when legends are made. Both in the water and on deck.

Sick Splits

In the tradition of ESPN's Web Gems, introducing Sick Splits... And what better place to start than Day One at NCAA's?  You love this stuff, you know you do. I do. It's shamelessly swim geek, but whatever. If you've been in it, you know how exciting it is. These are numbers that make your pulse race. The crazy ass relay splits that bend time and make you text your friends frantically... Here's tonight's first edition:

4.) 40.45 - Vlad Morozov, USC, 100 free split on 4x100 medley relay, prelims. 18.9 to the feet... Yeah, Jesus.

3.) 43.48 - Tom Shields, Cal, 100 fly on medley relay, finals. The. Best. Swimmer. In. College.

2.) 17.86 - Vlad Morozov, USC, 50 free split on 200 free relay, finals. What the fuck?

1.) 49.56 - Kevin Cordes, Arizona, 100 breast on medley relay. No, seriously, what the fuck? When I texted this to my friend, Adam, he wrote back: "The greatest yards swim ever." It might be.

So, there you have it... Sick Splits, Vol. 1.

Prelims - From Paper to Reality

Men's NCAA results: Day one prelims vs. statistical projections... The times are in from the all-important first session of NCAAs - and it turns out the psyche sheets don't lie. Much. Take a look at the reality after morning one:

If the meet had been decided on paper, here's how it would have looked:

So, flip Indiana and Texas in 4th and 9th positions, and the top nine teams are more or less exactly as predicted. USC and Auburn reverse orders in 5th and 6th, but that was a toss up to begin with. As noted previously, Indiana was probably the one team most likely to drop in the projections, while everyone seemed to know Texas was completely undervalued based on its seed times.

As for the top teams, it's clear that Cal was also undervalued points-wise. Just look at its seeds for its relays. But that likely won't be enough to catch Michigan. If they continue to swim to their seeds, as they did this morning, they'll win. It's just one session of six, but as anyone who's ever been to the Meet knows, that first session counts for more than any other. It sets the tone and dictates all that's about to come next.

Like a political pundit desperate to believe his party actually stands a chance, plenty of folks will continue to deny the obvious in these statistical projections. That's all lovely, it's nice to support your school. Just remember to bet with the stats, not with your heart.