And So Much for That

Thorpedo Fails to Launch... 12th in 200 free at Aussie Trials

Despite every sign, I refused to believe it. I just couldn't conceive of Ian Thorpe failing like this. He seemed to have prepared (convinced?) himself for this outcome awhile back, but I suppose I thought it was his way of managing those crushing external expectations.

Turns out, the sad fact is that Thorpe just no longer has it.

Yesterday in the 200 free at Aussie Trials, he delivered a respectable morning swim of 1:49.1 - good enough for 5th place. Since the Aussies aren't quite as deep as the Americans, the best among them can cruise a bit through the heats. Checking out Thorpe's prelims splits it looked like he might have just shut it down on the back half. His split at the 100 - 51.7 - was by far the fastest of the bunch. But then he was crawling home, in a weak 29.2. Appears he wasn't just conserving energy. It wasn't there.

In the semifinal later that night, he relaxed a bit going out, flipping in 52.1. He was still in the game but fading badly at the 150, with his 3rd 50 over a second slower than his 2nd. And then... nothing.

1:49.91. 12th Place.

His last lap was slower, by significant margins, than all but one of the Aussie semifinalists.

There was a time when that last lap was a thing of beauty. When his feet went into overdrive and accelerated away from the field. Just like Phelps and Lochte and Biedermann, and the rest of the guys we so hoped he'd be racing in London...

Thorpe still has the 100 left. Maybe he'll sneak onto the Team with a 5th or 6th place finish and return to the Games as a relay alternate. But the Aussies are currently the favorites for gold in the men's 4x100 free relay, and it's clear Thorpe is not close to the league of his young compatriots who'll be on that relay in the London final.

Goes without saying that Thorpe handled the disappointment with class. No surprise there.

But here's one comeback junkie who probably should have never gone back to the sauce...

Forgotten Architects

The Coach and the Credit... Breakthroughs are coming. Lifetime performances on that one-fine-day when it all comes together... At Olympic Trials throughout the world over the next few months, certain swimmers will stand up and do the things they've always dreamed of doing. They will be the chosen few. The ones who peak at just the right moment, who swim best times beyond their wildest goals, and earn their place on the Team. When this happens, they will weep and throw pumpers and thank the many fine folks who helped them get there. They will likely start with their coach. But which one?

There has long been considerable complaint from the club coaching ranks about this sensitive issue of credit. You know the story: After coaching a kid through years and years of growth, bringing him to the cusp of greatness at 18, the swimmer goes off to college, a prized recruit for some lucky coach. A year or two later, after weights and maturity and a great new training group, this swimmer takes the next step into the big time. Trials roll around and there he is, racing for a spot on the Team. In recognition of his swimmer's achievement, guess who gets named to the Olympic coaching staff?

Yeah, one can see how that might lead to some bitterness...

Problem is, that club coach, the one who leads his senior elite squad of high school kids? There might be someone else thinking the same thing about him. The swimmer's age group coach - the one who taught this kid the right way to swim from the beginning, who put that whole foundation in place.

Sure, it takes a village, we get it. And yes, there's always going to be an element of trickle-down ego bruising. Everyone wants to be recognized for their contribution. It's human nature. But is this also an example of backwards priorities in the coaching ranks?

Last week, I wrote a story about the "myth" of Michael Phelps' talent. The basic point, supported by a growing body of books disproving the primacy of talent, was that Phelps' greatness has a whole lot more to do with his perfectly designed "deliberate practice" when he was a kid than it does with his daunting natural abilities. Specifically, it can be attributed to the work he did with Bob Bowman between the ages of 10 and 15. The time when he never missed a day, when he set the foundation for the ultimate Olympic career.

If that's true, and there's a lot of evidence to support it, then the most important thing to observe should be exactly what Michael was doing in those pre-teen and early teenage years. And just as importantly - who was teaching him back then? The answer, of course, was Bob Bowman. The same man who's teaching him today. (NOTE: "teaching" and "coaching" are synonyms...) In this, Phelps is immensely lucky and so is his coach. The athlete never had to interrupt his progress learning a new system and the coach never had to consider sharing an ounce of credit.

The great majority of swimmers are not so lucky. They usually have three coaches, minimum. The age group coach, the head club coach, and the college coach. You can guess the order of prestige. But if we can admit that the root of Phelps' greatness can be found in those early years, shouldn't we question that pecking order of the traditional coaching ranks? Because what that age group coach is doing might set up the swimmer for future greatness in ways that his 'elders' simply cannot.

This should not come across as a criticism of the head club coach or the college coach. They earned their positions of authority for a reason - and they came up through the ranks, probably spent a few years themselves as overlooked age group coaches. Nor should it belittle the work they do with the swimmers they receive along this path. It's all a progression, and in plenty of cases, the work of a coach involves getting a swimmer back on track - because the coach before him badly screwed up.

Yet, when viewed from afar, how can the age group coach not be viewed as the cornerstone of all future excellence? How can this essential piece of the puzzle receive so little credit at the moment of truth?

Here's one swimmer who doesn't seem to have that problem dishing out the credit to his all-important age group coach. As it happens, he's the second greatest swimmer ever, and the one guy who's ever been able to dethrone the mighty Phelps. Ryan Lochte followed that three-coach formula growing up. He also happens to follow the perfect model of development for those in the "talent myth" camp. See, Lochte was groomed since birth for swimming greatness. His dad, Steve, is a lifelong coach who made sure his son was put on that path early. But who was Ryan's age group coach growing up? That would be his mom, Ileana.

At the Golden Goggles Awards last November, a slightly swaying Lochte stood behind the podium after being named the Athlete of the Year for the third year in a row. He dutifully thanked Coach Troy, the man who's guided him since he arrived in Gainesville nine years ago, he thanked his teammates, thanked Michael for always pushing him to more, but then he saved his biggest thanks for his mom. Maybe it was just for being, you know, his mom.

But maybe it was also for being the not-so-forgotten architect of all that success to come...

The Myth of Michael's Talent

Questioning God-given Gifts... It's easier to chalk it up to talent. It's that unfair distribution of destined-for-gold genetics that a rare few are awarded with in rich supply. Some got it, most of us don't. Or so the thinking goes...

And one guy was born with more of it than any human being ever dipped in water. You've seen this movie, right? The one about Michael Phelps being so perfectly born to swim that it's pointless for mere land-dwelling mortals even to try to compete? Indeed, four years ago, at the start of the Beijing Games, NBC ran a feature about his freakishly flawless proportions. They called it "Designed to Swim." (Check it out on You Tube right HERE if you missed it.)

The piece was well done, and hard to dispute. I mean, they were dealing in facts: stands six-foot-four; wingspan is six-foot-seven; short legs and a super long torso; size 14 feet; hands the size of dinner plates - ok, that one might not be technically fact, but you get the idea. At the top of the piece, Dan Hicks' voice-over tells you that "If you were to build the perfect swimmer, the finished product would look just like this."

Fair enough. The resumé speaks for itself.

Yet, even with all those physical facts, something essential has been lost. And it's probably the single most important element that explains Phelps' greatness. It's not those one in a million genetics. In fact, I'd argue that his genetic gifts aren't really one in a million at all. They're one in a lot, no question. Say one in a couple thousand? But he's not the only guy walking around who looks like that. Hell, hang out on deck at any national meet; you'll see plenty of guys with proportions not so different.

Nor is it his work ethic. As has been well documented (by Phelps himself), that work ethic comes and goes. When he's on, it's scary, we know this. The guy has done sets that are superhuman. But the guy has also missed a boatload of workouts over the past eight years. During the same period when he established himself, beyond all doubt, as the greatest swimmer of all time.

So, what the hell is it?

It's what happened a long time ago - back in the mid to late 90's, when Phelps was a kid, from age 10 to 15. If you want to understand Michael Phelps' greatness, stop looking at his God-given "gifts", and don't put too much stock in the many workouts he might have missed in the years since Beijing. Instead, go back about 15 years, back to a time when the kid never missed a day. Ever. For thousands of days in a row.

He hasn't been coasting on his talent these last few years. He's been coasting on perhaps the greatest base of training and aquatic education that a kid can receive.

There's a powerful book out there that breaks down this theory beautifully. It's called "Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else." It's by a Fortune magazine writer named Geoff Colvin. A business book in nature, it should be required reading for every coach who reads this. Buy it on Amazon right HERE. (Mr. Colvin, if you see a slight bump in sales, you're welcome...)

Colvin's thesis centers around the notion of Deliberate Practice. That is, doing specific things over and over and over again, with constant feedback. Identifying exactly where you need to improve, and obsessing on every last detail with brutal commitment. If you're like me, you've responded to that thesis like this: No shit.

Every swimmer and coach knows the necessity of deliberate practice in his bones. Nothing groundbreaking there. It's beyond obvious to swimmers. But like all good reporters, Colvin takes something that should be basic and peels back endless layers. To reveal that most of you do it all wrong -- over and over and over again.

Phelps did not. Correction: Bob Bowman did not let him. During Phelps' most formative years, Bowman, by every account, was a grand master of deliberate practice. So much so that I was truly surprised to find no mention of Bowman or Phelps in Colvin's book.

Here's who Colvin does analyze: Mozart and Tiger Woods. Two other guys who've long carried the mantle of God-given Otherworldly Talent. Of course, we soon learn that, though plenty "gifted", both Mozart and Woods were the creations of early, obsessive - and flawlessly designed - training in their youth. Mozart's father was a composer himself, who retired when baby Wolfgang was born to devote the rest of his life to teaching music to his son. And we all know the story of Earl Woods and his all-too-deliberate golf practice before Tiger could walk. These two prodigies were made, not born. And so was Michael.

This should be good news, for all involved. For Phelps and Bowman, it should give credit where it's due -- to the years when the ultimate foundation was laid for a swimmer.

For everyone else, it should be good news for the opposite reason: It should confirm that you are not racing someone who's "just better." Who has infinitely more talent than you, so why even try... The playing field might be a lot more level than you think. It just takes a level of commitment - from a very young age - that few are willing even to consider.

If you're having a hard time buying all this, I can relate. As a swimmer, I used to carry around barrels full of bitterness for swimmers I deemed "more talented" but less willing to work as hard as I was. This is defeatist thinking, to be sure. It also misses quite a few points. Some aren't so easy to admit - like maybe I was doing the wrong thing over and over for many thousands of yards of fly sets. Or maybe that some of those sprinters over in lane eight, dicking around doing workouts that seemed like a joke -- maybe there was something a whole lot more deliberate in their practice. Things that produced results when shaved and tapered, but not necessarily things that looked tough or impressive at 6am on a random winter Tuesday.

I realize talent does indeed exist. It's not all myth. And no amount of perfectly deliberate practice starting at infancy is going to help a swimmer compete with a Phelps if they stop growing at five-foot-six, with small hands and feet. There is a limit to all this overrating of talent. But it's also time to demystify that word.

God might give out plenty of gifts, but he doesn't give away gold medals.

The Unbitter End

Facing the Final Curtain with Class... The end is near. For the comeback junkies, like Thorpe and Evans and the rest; for the legions who'll hang up their goggles immediately after not making the Team at Trials; even for the mighties like Phelps who'll likely swim away after London... Everyone swims a last race. This athletic death will come with all sorts of fallout...

Partying

Depression

Compulsive Behavior

A satisfied walk into the sunset, it's not. Even if it all ends with a fine rendition of your anthem played while you stand atop a podium. Which it won't, for all but the chosen few. And if it makes you feel any better, they won't be smiling much either once they've stepped down and out of the spotlight...

Retiring is brutal. No matter how well balanced you think your life might have been as a swimmer, in the aftermath, you will feel as though your soul has been sucked away. It has been; for years your soul has been marinating in chlorine. It takes awhile to clear all that junk from your system. Dark memories on a winter's day...

Of course, some wise fools manage this transition better than others. They can actually cope, with that rare gift of perspective in the present. Last Sunday, in the New York Times, there was a piece on one such athlete. A washout major league pitcher turned novelist, on his way to play ball in Italy, after failing to make it in the Show. His name is Dirk Hayhurst. His perspective should be required reading for every athlete facing the end:

“I think people want athletes to say, ‘I’m never giving up, I’m going to fight till the bitter end,’ ” Hayhurst told the Times. “But that’s just it: at the bitter end, you turn bitter. You’re like a junkie, strung out... because that’s your whole identity."

Fighting to the bitter end... Such a noble down-with-the-ship sentiment. I'd never considered the adjective in that cliché. Like good strong coffee or the best rumor, bitter can have a nice bite, but one hell of an aftertaste.

So, how to walk away?

1. Try the Hayhurst Method - Ween yourself off the drug with a lower dose. Go compete in Europe on a stage with less pressure, a less crippling level of competition. Enjoy the sport. Enjoy the lifestyle around it. Maybe a few World Cups, the Mare Nostrum tour... With best times as an after thought.

2. Cold Turkey - Dangerous, but sometimes necessary. For those whose swimming careers were, and are, a matter of life and death, a slow ween simply won't do. You're the sort who can't do a little, who can't find any satisfying high in the halfway. If that's the case, you just gotta go dry. As in, showering should be your only contact with water for a good long while. You will be unpleasant to be around for this long while. You will probably pick up some bad habits along the way. Apologize to your spouses in advance.

3. Admit to your subconscious that a comeback is coming. When you retire, you won't admit this in words or even frontal lobe thought, but deep down you'll know. C'mon, all these champions currently on the comeback trail? You think they truly believed they were done all those years they were away? I don't. If the door has been left open, even a sliver, you know it. You might not admit it, as you're packing on the pounds, trying out new careers your heart really isn't into, but sooner or later you're going to hear that Olympic anthem on one of NBC's promos and you're going to find your way back to a pool.

When that happens, more power to you. This will just delay the actual end, of course, but that's a worry for another day.

Last week in London, failed comebacker Mark Spitz spouted off about how Thorpe, Evans, and others have lost their edge and were doomed to fail - like he did, 20 years ago. As Swim News' Craig Lord points out, Spitz conveniently forgets to mention a middle-aged woman named Dara Torres. A woman who sees no end, and no need to quit.

44-year-old Torres has been analyzed endlessly, compared to countless athletes across every sport. Maybe all along, we were looking for analogies in the wrong places. Here might be Dara Torres' closest contemporary: Keith Richards.

With all these drug allusions, how can you not think of the indestructible Stone? Quitting cold turkey? Weening your way dry? These quaint notions are for mere mortals.

When the end comes, impossibly but inevitably, for Keith and for Dara, there will be no bitterness... Only a knowing, mocking smirk for those who died trying to keep up.

Place Your (Charity) Bets

Gambling, for Good, on Olympic Sport... Everything's more exciting with a bit of action on the outcome. A gambler's truism if there ever was one. Many might go with the glass half empty outlook: Nothing is exciting without some money on the line.

Wherever you fall on the compulsiveness meter, this is the one week of the year where you're probably placing a bet of some sort. Super Bowl week: the time when even teetotaling Mormons know the spread. The time when hard core bettors go on a mad frothing bender... In Vegas alone, there will be an estimated $100 million wagered legally. A drop in the cash bucket compared to the estimates worldwide. If you count offshore Internet gambling sites, illegal bookies, and the countless 'friendly' bets made in every living room in America, some say over $10 billion is bet this week on the game of games, by over 200 million people across the world.

It's a beautiful thing. Depending on how you view this fine vice... I love to gamble. Always have. Horses and poker, mainly, but having some cash on the line in any contest will always make it just that much more...

Unfortunately, wagering on our favorite sport of all has never been an option. (Officially that is...) Much as I'd love to see odds posted at the biggest meets, that doesn't seem like an idea that's going to entice the good folks at USA Swimming or the NCAA anytime soon. But just envision it for a second: 2-1 odds on Lochte beating Phelps in the 200 free. 50-1 odds on anyone beating Phelps in the 200 fly. How about a favorite / longshot Exacta in the men's 50 free - Cesar Cielo and Anthony Ervin, anyone? How about being able to bet the Trifecta on any podium at the Games?

Obvious opportunity for corruption and scandal aside, the idea does have its upsides. Like legalizing marijuana in California or legalizing Internet gambling in all 50 states, opening up wagering on swimming could instantly cure many financial crises. Things like, say, all of men's college swimming... Alas, few want to hear about vice coming to the rescue.

In the meantime, here's a noble way to get your gambling fix on in Olympic sport. Take a look at Charity Bets. Do-gooding meets stock-picking, in sport... A way to gamble on your favorite athletes. And when you win, you give. Come again? Isn't gambling about getting? Yes, well, time to test that old Christmas cliché - it's better to give than to receive...

Here's how it happened: A few sporty finance guys in New York were looking to raise money for cancer research around an athletic event. According to the site, their approach can be summed up with this simple premise: "I bet you can't run this fast, or jump this high, or throw this far." The essence of every challenge between competitors, with an emphasis on the bet. These guys decided to go a step further, set up a site, started contacting athletes, and a beautiful charitable mission was born.

And here's how it works: Pick your athlete and issue your challenge. Pick your favorite charity. Place your bets. Athlete succeeds, you win, you pay up to your chosen worthy cause.

U.S. marathon champion Meb Keflezighi has been the early face of Charity Bets. By winning the U.S. Olympic marathon Trials in Houston last month, Keflezighi won his bets, and raised a boatload for the chosen charities. U.S. sprinters Walter Dix and Justin Gatlin are also on board.

So, the question is, why aren't any swimmers on Charity Bets yet? Why aren't the Olympic Swimming Trials listed on the site as events with open charitable wagering? Right now, there are plenty of options in running, biking, and triathlon. Where are the swimmers?

This is what swimmers do anyway. Last week, I heard Ryan Lochte and Conor Dwyer were talking trash at workout, challenging each other over who could do what in practice. Apparently Lochte tells Dwyer there's no way you can stand up and go 3:48 in the 400 IM, right now. Dwyer takes the bait. Stands up and goes 3:42. In practice. Same time he went at NCAA's last year... Impressing Ryan Lochte must have been nice. Seeing him have to pay up - to a worthy cause - would have been even sweeter.

I'm ready to place some bets. So, here's a challenge to kick this off: Lochte, I've got $100 that says you can't break your world record this year in the 200 IM. You pick the charity.

I would love to pay up.

The Two Mikes

Jordan and Phelps - and the Power of the Slight... I'll show you, they say. You will pay. For your actions, for your words, for your insolence. And pay we do - to witness the ultimate level of athletic achievement. To witness the unfathomable. Their fuel? The disrespect of anyone who dared to doubt.

Michael Jordan and Michael Phelps - mighty rulers of air and water. Two men driven by eerily similar temperaments.

With a new Olympic year under way, likely the last for Phelps, there will be the inevitable search for context and comparisons, as the media descends around the most decorated champion in the history of the Games. There will be lists and tributes and highlight reel eulogies. That's what the media does, right? After the triumph come the replays, the endless analysis.

Phelps is going to finish up with somewhere between 17 and 20 career Olympic gold medals. It's pointless now to compare him to any other Olympian, no matter what happens in his London showdowns with Ryan Lochte. So, instead we're going to cross sports and start sizing him up with other icons. You see it coming, don't you? Tiger and Gretzky and Brady, they'll all enter the conversation. Probably even Ali. But the fact is, Phelps resembles one athlete above all others, another Mike. Another obscenely talented victory addict driven by nothing so much as the need to settle every last slight...

Last week, Sports Illustrated ran a heartbreaking story about the descent of Michael Jordan's high school coach, a guy named Pop Herring. This was the man, in Jordan mythology, who famously cut him from the varsity team at Laney High when MJ was a sophomore. It was a slight that Jordan never let go. He brought it up repeatedly throughout his career - the night they retired his number at the United Center in Chicago, the night of his now infamous score-settling Hall of Fame induction speech.

The story goes on to point out that this was not so much a slight as the wise move of a smart young high school coach. (Herring was in his late 20's when he coached Jordan at Laney...) Rather than let his precocious superstar-in-waiting ride the pine for an entire season as a sophomore, Herring placed Jordan on the JV squad - where he started and dominated. And because of that, when his junior year came around, Jordan was ready to lead the team. But today's story is not about rehashing Jordan's slightly fictional mania, it's about a single quote in that SI piece. One that might define Mr. MP as much as it describes MJ.

According to SI: "Jordan would become a world-class collector of emotional wounds, a champion grudge-holder, a magician at converting real and imagined insults into rocket fuel that made him fly."

It's that last line that made me stop reading. A magician at converting real and imagined insults into rocket fuel that made him fly... That made him fly indeed. Who was I reading about again?

The stories about this special rocket fuel are legion with Phelps, just as they are with Jordan. After his eighth gold in Beijing, in NBC's Olympic studios, he recounted for Bob Costas long remembered slights through the years. He recalled the 12-year-old who dissed him way back when, how he refused to admit he remembered the guy when he came up to him years later, backslapping the now famous aqua king.

And of course there was Mike Cavic, the maimed tiger poker. Back in 2009, do you remember his taunts at the World Champs in Rome? Well, they weren't really taunts, no more than Pop Herring cruelly ignored Jordan's talent. But they were enough to provoke the champ, someone forever attuned to provocation. After charging past Cavic in the 100 fly final in Rome, becoming the first man ever to break the 50-second barrier in the event, Phelps unleashed a defiant Jordan-esque celebration.

Post race, with sly understatement, Phelps had this to say: "Things motivate me -- sometimes comments, sometimes what people do. That's just how I tick."

Don't mistake this fuel for your standard locker room fodder disrespect. The half-bright bluster of a Rex Ryan quote that the Giants use to get fired up before the game. It's far beyond these manufactured how dare he clichés. It's also on another level from the guys who are forever determined to prove themselves after being doubted way back when... Consider the exploits of Tom Brady or Aaron Rogers, or even that guy named Tebow.

No, this is something relentlessly renewed, hunted for... It's personal and there is nothing phony or contrived about it. When it comes to the fire breathing competitive spirit of a Jordan or a Phelps, ever utterance can be converted into the need to crush any infidel.

It's pathological - in the most proud and productive sense. At least when channeled into the field of competition...

About a year and a half ago, back in the fall of 2010, I had my own brush with this dark magic. I was, briefly, the "slight du jour". It was over a piece that called into question Phelps' preparedness after falling flat in the 400 IM at the 2010 Pan Pacific Games in Irvine. It questioned his decision to swim the sport's hardest event after admittedly limited training. It might have poked at the tiger's ego a bit. Soon, the rumbles found their way back to me. I'd known the Phelps family since Michael was three years old, family friends going way way back in Baltimore. Now I was persona non grata. The enemy. A doubter. And doubters deserve to be punished.

This should not have been too surprising. In fact, a part of me probably wanted to pay -- a slightly selfish swim fan who wanted to provoke the greatest IM'er in history into returning to his signature race. Poke that ego a bit and maybe he'll feel the need to show me, and everyone else who doubts his ability to reach those Beijing heights again. Unfair? Only if you take it personal.

Which of course is the whole point. Who knows, another slight may even be found in this story (pathological?!), even as I'm comparing him to the greatest competitor of the 20th Century...

One can only hope.

Pay Your Way

The movement to pay college football and basketball players... and what it means for college swimming. A righteous debate rumbles into deep water... Last Sunday, the latest media missile was fired into the mess of big time college sports. It hit its mark with precision, making the overwhelming and by now obvious case that NCAA football and men's basketball players deserve to be paid. This latest treatise was published in the New York Times magazine by Joe Nocera. Its unambiguous headline: Let's Start Paying College Athletes.

Agreed. But then what...

Nocera quickly clarifies his editor's headline; he doesn't mean just any athletes. And certainly not swimmers or other sportsmen and women in the shadows who generate exactly zero dollars for their schools. No, the journalist cum reformer makes the clear case that the only ones entitled to a share of the income are the ones who actually earn the income. In other quarters, this would be known as the Law. As opposed to a cartel or a plantation -- the two entities that the NCAA most closely resembles these days. (How do you feel about Colombian drug lords and slave driving 19th century Southern landowners? Maybe consider these two conscience-free classes next time you're singing your college fight song...)

Two months back, I posted a piece called State of Pay, which picked apart the tone-deaf ideas in a Sports Illustrated story that argued for similar reform. Under SI's plan, paying football and basketball players would mean slashing sports like swimming from scores of athletic departments. Fortunately, Nocera's plan in the New York Times refrains from such destructive half-bright suggestions. In fact, no other sport is mentioned once in the piece except football and basketball. He rightly points out that these athletes are employees of the schools -- workers who earn often substantial revenue for their employers. As opposed to the athletes in "non-revenue" sports who earn nothing for the university, and thus can fairly be called amateur. (Setting aside the sponsorship debate for the moment...)

I was nodding right along with the story until I came to one rather halting paragraph. Under Nocera's plan, not all universities will be able to afford the new required cost to compete. If each school has a set budget with a salary cap (to prevent Yankees-like monopolizing at schools like Texas and Florida...), some will not be able to afford that budget, even with a cap. Can't afford to pay, can't compete, goodbye program. Nocera doesn't seem particularly bothered by this. He estimates that the number of so-called "major" football programs will shrink from 120 to 72, and the number of "major" men's basketball programs will shrink even further, from 338 to around 100. Now, this would not affect the top 25 rankings in either sport, and you wouldn't even notice it during March Madness. It would merely eliminate those teams who are already kidding themselves about competing in the big time...

Except that's not what would happen at all. Under this plan, about 25,000 scholarships would disappear: 28 football programs with 85 scholarships each, and 228 basketball programs with 13 scholarships each. (Feel free to do the math.) Meaning thousands of ballplayers who might have gone to college for free now aren't going to college at all. We're not talking about high-income resourceful backgrounds here. If the scholarship ticket goes away, that means a great many would never even set foot on a college campus. As poor as the "education" is for so many of these football and basketball players, no college education whatsoever is not exactly preferable.

This won't fly. We know this. These football and basketball programs aren't going anywhere, even if they're also-ran schools with no hope of really competing at a high level. They still have a critical mass of fans and alumni who will absolutely howl at even the hint of cutting them. Guess what will happen? C'mon, take half a second to think about it... Football and basketball players suddenly start earning a rightful wage as proud income-producing workers of a university. Athletic Directors suddenly have to get financially literate in a hurry. They know they can't touch their sacred big ticket sports, even if they can't afford to compete. So, they start looking somewhere else to cut costs...

Looking at sports like... you guessed it. Swimming is in trouble any way you cut it. The financial model of the NCAA is so unsustainable and flat out busted that anyone not pulling their financial weight better start scrambling for their very existence. And that means everyone in the sport of college swimming.

Here's what it comes down to: If you earn nothing and yet consider yourself entitled to all the spoils -- scholarships, travel, private locker rooms, and the rest of those intangibles that so many swimmers consider birthrights -- if you feel you're entitled to all this and generate nothing in return, at some point, someone is going to come looking for you. With a knife.

So, how to avoid the assassin? There is a way. It's not too complicated either. It comes down to the simple wisdom learned (the hard way or not) by anyone who's ever held a job, didn't want to lose it, and hoped to be promoted... Three words: Make Yourself Indispensable. Make the people who pay your way actually give a shit about you. Make them think, no, truly believe, that they cannot do without you.

With all due respect, coaches and swimmers, your college swim team is dispensable. When it comes down to dollars and cents, you aren't worth keeping. That's a hard pill to swallow, but it's true. Competitive swimming is a bad business - for this basic reason: it requires a lot of time and space in the pool in order to thrive. Space and time, these are two expensive items, especially in a high maintenance tub of water.

But these teams are worth keeping, regardless of the unblinking bottom line. Anyone reading this surely believes that. So, the question is - how do you convince the two parties that matter most to embrace your existence and make sure you continue forevermore. These two parties? The university itself and your alumni. You need them both. They need to have your back and be willing to fight for your survival as much as you're willing to fight when the ax is raised...

If that's going to happen, it's time to wise up. The financial blindness of so many swimmers and coaches is astonishing. They can't, can't possibly!, grasp how a school could be so cruel as to cut a sacred institution like a men's swimming program. Yet, when asked what they've given back, what will the answer be? Deafening silence... Those football and basketball players have an answer when they're asked that question. They can point to full stadiums and TV cameras and ask how much their own coaches earn thanks to them.

Now, the answer will never be the same when it is put to swimmers or other 'non-revenue' athletes. ('Non-revenue', such a seemingly harmless word that's tossed around but says so much...) Money-generated clearly will never be the answer. Ok, then what about clinics and swimming lesson programs for kids in and around the college community? What about taking an active role in fundraising, with seniors picking up the phone once in awhile and calling alumni and wooing them as much as they try to woo star recruits? What about figuring out how to set up an endowment for your team? How about teams stepping forward to help the university as a whole, integrating itself as an essential how-can-we-help part of your college town? Something like that tends to bring grant money for young men and women who actually grasp their place in the wider community...

These are the sort of things that make one indispensable. They put you on the radar - in the right way - long before the Athletic Director / Assassin comes searching for ways that he can cut costs and afford to pay for sports deemed more important than your own.

I'm ashamed to admit that as a college swimmer myself, many years ago, none of these things ever occurred to me. I was a financial illiterate, an utterly entitled take-take-take swimmer. I was outraged when they cut the UCLA men's program across town when I was a freshman at USC. Yet, it never once occurred to me how it might have been prevented. It was Title IX's fault, it was unfair, and the mean old penny counters at the college just didn't get it. Maybe it couldn't have been prevented, no matter what was done. Many programs have been cut since, and many more will be in the future. But most of these teams are unwittingly putting themselves in harm's way by being so willfully blind to how they might help themselves.

Ground-shaking change is coming to the NCAA. College football and basketball players are going to be paid soon. Sooner than you think. The system is broken and the cries for reform are only getting louder. And the changes are going to hit swimming, hard.

If the sport wants to stick around on the college level, it's time to get creative. And it's time to start making yourself indispensable.

Story By Numbers

Who cares about commentary, where are the results? It's all about the times. That is, the numbers, those down-to-the-hundredth facts, the ones that tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Results are what makes this sport so objectively beautiful. It's a universal language where nothing can be lost in translation. There's no third party trying to interpret what just happened on a field of play. No judges holding up subjective numbers or rankings that are inherently open for dispute. A clock starts with a beep, it records your progress at each wall, and it stops for good when your hand touches the finish. Beyond that, all else is just passing the time.

Which is why this site is about to add an essential element. A Results section. (Perhaps you've already noticed the toolbar additions above...)

In the coming weeks, a calendar of international meets will be posted. And in an Olympic year, there will be plenty. When that meet takes place, wherever it is in the world, a link will be posted where you can find the results. Sound simple enough? These results can be found elsewhere, I realize, but it frequently takes some searching. It won't be all-encompassing, tracking down each and every regional junior meet from Florida to Shanghai; instead it will be a curated list of meets that fans of Olympic swimming might care about. Grand Prix's, World Cups, Olympic Trials, NCAA's, European Champs, etc.

As fun as it is to dissect and analyze the athletes and the issues, what else is there, really, that's more interesting to swimmers than the actual results of a meet? That's the first thing I look for, before I read anyone's report on what happened... I want to read the story in the numbers. Because those numbers are far more honest and eloquent than what anyone could report.

It's akin to baseball box scores, the past performances of race horses in the Daily Racing Form, or stock charts that look like numerical gibberish to those who can't tease out fortunes from the hidden-in-plain-site patterns... For the savants of any sport or business, the numbers will always tell stories rich with life, a narrative without sentences but filled with deep meaning.

Take a look at the chart below. These are the results from the men's 200 freestyle at the 2009 World Championships in Rome. It was perhaps the tipping point of the super suits, the race that forced regulation, the race that led Bob Bowman to threaten to take his proverbially ball and go home if something wasn't done about those damn suits. Have a look:

What story do these numbers tell? Without any context whatsoever, you can look at Paul Biedermann's splits and be astonished. Not only by the final time that shattered the world record by almost a second, but by each number that came before it. Going out in 50.12 to the feet. Widening his lead over the third 50 by a few tenths. But leaving Phelps within striking distance, just four-tenths back. The man with the greatest last wall in the history of the sport, the guy who breaks wills over the final 50 meters, the one who's proven time and again that, if it's close with a lap to go, it's all over. But not this time...

On this day in Rome, Paul Biedermann made Phelps look human. An outmatched, outgunned, overwhelmed human. Biedermann came home in 25.70. Almost a second faster than Phelps. You don't need to watch the race to get it. You don't need NBC's Dan Hicks and Rowdy Gaines to call the race and explain what just went down in order to get it. All you need to see is the numbers.

But do those numbers really tell the whole truth and nothing but? Not really. Do they point out that Biedermann was aided by a suit that seemed to enhance his performance - and his particular body type - more than that of his competitors? Do the numbers illustrate Phelps' total lack of post-Olympic training? Well, they do if you know the context of the race. But the stand-alone digits only tell the story on the surface. They tell the story of a race - one that started and ended for all eight finalists in 106 seconds. And on that day, no matter what anyone was wearing, no matter who had trained more or less, here are the facts as laid out by the numbers: Paul Biedermann swam 200 meters faster than any human ever has before, while thrashing the greatest swimmer in history one lane over.

"Remember that the life of this world is but a sport and a pastime."

Those lines came from the Koran, apparently. Not a text I can claim to know much about, but wise words worth contemplating. And worth considering the difference between the two perhaps... A sport, in its purest sense, can be distilled in simple numbers, in silence. In the results. A pastime? That's what the rest of us do, trying to understand it.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Blown Out on the Trail

Checking in with the Comeback Crew... There won't be many happy endings. Most of these stories will end with an underwhelmed whimper. Some will end well before London. If gold and a return to past glory is perhaps an unfair and unrealistic expectation, then what can be expected of this Olympic jonesing cast of comeback junkies? A proud and respectable showing? The ability to say the inevitable "I have no regrets" with a straight and believable face?

Two months back, I wrote about the strange trend of so many past champions unable to resist the lure of London. Back in the water, back on the sauce, desperate for another hit of Olympic crack. Well, now the results have begun to roll in. Some seem to have picked up right where they left off, some are exceeding expectations, and others... Well, others may be fighting that nasty virus called Doubt right about now.

So, let's take a look. Starting with the biggest dog of all... the mighty Ian Thorpe. I know I'm not alone in saying that there's no comeback I'm pulling for more. Thorpe is a class act. Much smarter than your average superstar athlete, with a self awareness and eloquence that has always cast our sport in the finest light. We all want to see him back on the blocks in London, flanked by Phelps and Lochte, ready to deliver a 200 free showdown for the ages. Problem is, that's beginning to seem less and less likely. His recent times are not inspiring confidence.

At the recent Italian Nationals, the Thorpedo was not exactly living up to his nickname. His times: 50.8 in the 100 free / 1:51.5 in the 200 free. Ouch. Now, don't read too much into this. Thorpe is still going to make the Aussie Team. He's going to drop a load of time in both those races at his Trials. I'm betting he wins the 200 Down Under and also qualifies on the Aussie's 4x100 free relay - one that will probably be the favorite in London. Still, he's running out of time; the Aussie Trials are in March. And while I can see him going 1:46 or so in the 200, that won't put him anywhere near the podium in London.

What about his guitar-smashing compadre Michael Klim? A bit faster lately - 49.8 in the 100 at a recent meet in Melbourne. Think he grabs a spot on the Team too, probably as a prelims-only guy on that 4x100 relay... Which will make his return a success, I suppose, but how much more can really be said about being the fifth or sixth fastest guy in your country in one event? As for Thorpe, he knows that anything less than a London dog fight with the two-headed Phepte beast will go down as a disappointment...

Speaking of smarter than average Olympic champs with flawless freestyles... Here's a comeback that's shaping up beautifully out in the Berkeley hills. Last week, Anthony Ervin showed he's back in the game with a vengeance, posting two impossible to ignore times: 19.4 in the 50 and 42.6 in the 100. While conversion from yards to long course meters is a highly inexact science, I'd say that translates to around 22.5  and 49-low in the big pool. I'll admit a bit of bias here, as Tony is a friend and former colleague here in New York, but like Thorpe, this is a comeback worth rooting for. Not only because it's a terrific story about re-embracing long discarded other-worldly talent, but because Tony is doing it with grace and humility. Congratulated recently for his times last week, he replied that while encouraging, there's still a long ways to go - and then cited Nathan Adrian's frequent schooling of him in Cal workouts as evidence of exactly what he's up against.

Ah yes, humility... And then there's the breaststrokers. First the good news. Brendan Hansen has clearly not missed a beat. His winning times at the recent U.S. Nationals - 1:00.3 in the 100 and 2:09.6 in the 200 - prove that he's not just on track to make the Team, but that he has a shot to threaten his arch-rival Kosuke Kitajima for gold in London.

A bit further down the breaststroke results page, you'll find Ed Moses. His comeback has produced a hip hop music video, a reality TV show, oh, and he made it all the way to the 'C' final at the recent U.S. Nationals. I'm all for shameless self-promotion, but only when there's a bit of substance to back it up... Note to the savvy programmers at Universal Sports: See 'Dan & Dave', circa 1992.

At the other end of the spectrum, there's a pair of ageless beauties with plenty of substance - Dara Torres and Amanda Beard. Both of these ladies clearly like to have their picture taken, and they've both been very savvy in promoting themselves beyond the pool, but they back it up, year after year after year, with brilliant performances when they hit the water. At some point, you'd think we'd stop being surprised. Months before the next Games, and there's Torres and Beard once again posting eye-popping times, on track to return to yet another Games. At some point a body has to slow and age. Doesn't it? No telling when with these two though...

Finally, there's the comeback that remains a bit of a mystery. Does anyone know how Janet Evans has been swimming? Despite repeated Google searches with every conceivable keyword, I could not find any results at all for her since she swam at Masters Nationals last summer. Those times - 4:19 in the 400 and 8:50 in the 800 - show that there's still a very long way to go - just to get to the U.S. Trials. But Evans was one of the hardest working, most determined champions in Olympic history; it seems ludicrous to count her out. Still, has she not been to a single meet this fall? At the Golden Goggles at L.A. last month, Summer Sanders conducted a table-side interview with her former Barcelona teammate, and the first thing Summer said was that she'd promised Janet she wouldn't ask about the comeback. Ok...

So, now you know. Fascinating stories, as they go... Everybody loves a comeback. But sooner or later, the clock stops. To steal a pun from Mr. Ervin: Only time will tell.

Through the Decades, Out of Darkness

There once was nothing. I don't mean that in any figurative, profound sense. I mean, literally, there was nothing. If you were a promising female high school swimmer and had the desire to swim after the age of 18, sorry, nothing for you. There was no women's college swimming whatsoever. If you were a still-improving male swimmer who longed to keep going after age 22, nope, nothing for you either. Even if you won a basket full of gold medals while still in school...

This wasn't that long ago.

On Saturday at the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles, I attended an event called Swimming Through the Decades. It was a sort of kick-off to Golden Goggles weekend, a gathering of past USA Swimming legends, one for each of the last five decades, on a panel moderated by Rowdy Gaines. I have to admit, I was skeptical. It had the smell of a U-S-A cheerleading session, a mass ego-stroking for a few of the all-time greats. As one of two Canadian Olympians in the crowd, I felt typically suspicious. I was way off. There was plenty of flattery, to be sure. (Not that the folks up there hadn't earned every bit of it...) But the vibe emanating from the stage was one of sincere collective humility. These five put a whole lot into perspective.

From the 60's, there was Debbie Meyer, the first woman to win three individual gold medals at one Games. She was 16-years-old when she did it, back at the 1968 Mexico City Games. From the 70's, John Naber, most decorated man on the most dominant American team in history - the 1976 men's team in Montreal. The one that won every event but one; Naber took home four of those gold. From the 80's, Matt Biondi, greatest swimmer of his generation, winner of seven medals in Seoul, five of them gold. The 90's: Summer Sanders, the golden girl of the '92 Barcelona Games, where she won four medals, including gold in the 200 fly. And from the '00s, it was Ryan Lochte. Resumé still in progress, you know the highlights... Not a bad murderer's row.

(Of course, there were two conspicuously absent. The two greatest Olympic swimmers in history. Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps. A shame these two couldn't make it, but as soon as the questions began, their absence was forgotten.)

As the elder stateswoman on stage, the other four tended to defer to Debbie Meyer whenever she had something to say. And there was plenty of wisdom in her replies...

ROWDY: How were things different back in your respective eras?

MEYER: (I paraphrase) Well, um, everything was different. College swimming for women didn't exist back in my day. There was nowhere for us to swim after high school. There were barely any opportunities for female swimmers in high school!

Come again? This was 43 years ago. A long time, yes. But Meyer is younger than my parents, and she could pass for 43. Hearing this from a pioneer, who looks and talks more like a peer than a grandma, was jarring. Did. Not. Exist. No women's college swimming, full stop. This was five years before Billie Jean King won the "Battle of the Sexes" in 1973. It was four years before Title IX was passed, opening the door for collegiate sports for women. Meyer was a full Olympiad before all this. Three gold medals at 16 is plenty impressive, enough to call it a career, but one has to wonder what Meyer could have gone on to accomplish if she'd had a full ride waiting to any school she pleased, and an apparel deal from Speedo waiting after that...

ROWDY: John, how about you? What was different in the 70's for men's swimming?

NABER: Well, unfortunately, I knew with certainty that no matter what happened in Montreal, I would go back to USC after the Games, finish my college career and that would be that. There just wasn't anything for swimmers after college. Nothing at all.

Even the mighty Spitz retired at age 23. Naber, who you could say was the Lochte of his era, was done right out of school, couldn't even consider anything else. Ryan Lochte completed his college swimming career at Florida in 2006. Safe to say he was just getting started...

ROWDY: Matt, you and Tom Jager were the ones who ushered in this new era of professional opportunities for swimmers. How did things start to change?

BIONDI: (Again, paraphrasing) It happened slowly. I remember in 1988, I got to know Germany's Michael Gross. He was sort of the 'other one', the greatest swimmer in Germany, and we were the ones really celebrated as the best all around swimmers. I remember feeling like I had more in common with him than my American teammates. It was very lonely, being in that position.

Even back in the early 90's, there was almost no one who stuck around after college. The opportunities just weren't there. But by the mid 90's, that all started to change. By this time, women's college swimming was a fact of life, funding the educations of thousands of promising young women who finally had other pools waiting for them after high school. And when they graduated, there was more waiting for the very best. Swimwear companies started to sign the now-profitable faces of the Games. The notion of the "pro swimmer" had become a reality.

There's been plenty of pessimism written about the state of college swimming, and about the new reality of professional swimming opportunities after that. I've written a lot of dark missives about it myself. But as Debbie Meyer and John Naber and Matt Biondi were answering Rowdy's questions, I was watching Ryan Lochte's reactions. Lochte has always come across as the most grateful of champions. But as he listened to his forebearers speak, he had the quiet overwhelmed look of a kid who's just been told he's the heir to a massive trust fund.

Which of course, he is.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone...

The Price of College

Missy Franklin and the Value of the Undergrad Degree To have problems like these... Option A: Accept a full scholarship to any university in America. Soak up school's eternal gratitude. Win many NCAA titles. Have time of your life. Option B: Accept prize money and untold endorsements. Win a few gold medals in London. Appear on Wheaties box. Earn far more than that college scholarship was "worth."

A champagne problem indeed. A truly diamond-studded dilemma... This is what is currently facing 16-year-old high school junior Missy Franklin. She's the best American female swimmer since Janet Evans, and she's earned this difficult choice by virtue of her astonishing talent. While I have never met the girl, everything I have seen, heard, and read indicates that she is a smart and grateful young athlete. I think she gets it, and I think she appreciates that there are worse problems to have.

It is a rare and privileged decision to face, yet it is hardly a can't-lose choice. The possibility of regret looms large on both sides. What if I win big in London and turn down millions that I might never see again? Just for the chance to have the college swimming experience? What if I take the plunge and accept the money and then get hurt? Or simply lose the fire or the mojo required to win gold medals? This is hardly NBA-contract guaranteed money. The real money in swimming (what little there is of it) is incentive-laden to the extreme. It's what-have-you-done-for-me-lately. Stop winning, stop earning...

Nonetheless, don't you wish you could have had such a choice at 16?

While this question affects a miniscule population of the obscenely talented, their rare choice shines a light on a much wider question, one that affects every college student who does not have the luxury of a scholarship or parents wealthy enough to pay their way. That is - what am I paying for? And, more importantly, is it worth it?

That's the real question of value, isn't it? The essential balancing act that determines the price of everything. In every story written about athletes turning pro and forgoing college, you tend to see the same numbers bandied about. The price of college is often cited as "as much as $200,000" - meaning the tuition of top schools being around fifty grand a year these days. But this is a prime example of basing value on the literal rather than the actual. Something we all do, lazily, because it's easier. How much did Speedo offer you? $100K? Well, a Stanford scholarship is "worth" twice that.

Apologies for the continued use of quotation marks around the word "worth", but this number is ridiculous. Here's why: there is nothing more overpriced in America today than the cost of an undergraduate degree. If universities were stocks, I would short liberal arts colleges with every penny I have. What you get out is very often not what you put in. Or at least, not until that debt is paid off so many years later... It's a bad investment for its current going rate.

This argument is hardly news. It's one of the many grievances of the angry folks trying to occupy Wall Street. Higher education costs too much and it doesn't offer any decent return. Due to this imbalance, three things could happen: 1. Tuition prices go down. 2. Post-graduation salaries go up. 3. Many kids stop attending college altogether. Any guess on the most likely scenario?

So, this would make Missy Franklin's choice much easier, right? The value of that scholarship is absurdly inflated, so why not take the endorsement and prize money - income that is actual.

But there's the sad irony. While the cost of an undergraduate degree, in tuition terms, is grossly overpriced, the value of the collegiate athletic experience may be the most undervalued thing on any college campus. Hell, they're cutting many of the programs that offer the highest return!

College swimmers, where do you think you're going to meet the lead to your first employer? Where might you meet the friend you later start a business with? What network will you tap into if you wind up out of work at 30 and needing an in? Clue: Don't expect your degree to open many doors...

I know, these aren't exactly variables that should enter the mind of a talented 16-year-old. She should be thinking about the experience, the friendships that will be forged, the energy of an NCAA team standing as one, shoulder to shoulder along the edge of a pool, waving a teammate home in the heat of a close race... These are things that are impossible to value is financial terms. Or are they? Because many of those moments can and will transfer into career-making opportunities.

Regret is not an emotion often admitted by elite athletes. When things don't go exactly as planned, you tend to hear the "I wouldn't change a thing" line, the "it made me who I am" denials. Fair enough. I wouldn't admit it either. But the precedent of regret after turning pro is hard to miss. Especially among female swimmers.

Back in the early 1990's, I was growing up alongside the Missy Franklin of that era, a breaststroke phenom named Anita Nall. A year apart, we were friends and teammates on the North Baltimore Aquatic Club. At the 1992 Olympic Trials, 15-year-old Anita broke the world record in the 200 breaststroke - twice in one day.  She was the golden girl of the moment, the young charmed face of the American team heading into the Barcelona Games. Faced with sudden professional opportunities, she took the money and decided to forgo her NCAA eligibility.

In Barcelona, she had a good meet. But not a great one... A best time and an American record in the 100 breast, good enough for silver. A gold as a part of the women's 4 x 100 medley relay. But in the 200 breast, the event she was expected to dominate, she was just slightly off her best. She missed the gold by 2-tenths of a second and had to settle for bronze. She was never the same swimmer after that. There were reasons, valid ones like chronic fatigue, but she had missed her window, by 23-100ths of a second.

An individual gold medal is where it's at, the price of admission really, if you're talking about a "pro" swimming career paying off. Sixteen years after Anita's near miss in Barcelona, another high school pro from NBAC was forced to face the same reality. In 2008, Katie Hoff arrived in Beijing with an albatross of expectations weighing over her. The female Phelps, we called her. It wasn't fair maybe, but she'd earned it. She was the best female swimmer on the planet in the early summer of 2008. But by late summer, after her Games had ended, Hoff, like Anita Nall, was no longer the same swimmer. They both exited the Olympics with three medals, none of them individual gold.

Of course, NBAC also produced the ultimate example, the one career scripted by the gods. In Olympic waters, not much has ever gone wrong for Michael Phelps. No need to recite the litany of greatest hits. The money he's made makes these pro vs college debates completely moot. But that took how many gold medals? Maybe that shooting star destiny awaits Missy Franklin in London. Maybe it won't be any decision at all. But more likely, it will come down to a difficult question of value.

College might be overpriced, but college swimming remains the deal of a lifetime.

State of Pay

Sports Illustrated and the Plot to Kill College Swimming (And the rest of the NCAA's Olympic sports...) The NCAA is broken. No breaking news there, folks have been shouting from the sidelines for decades about this inept institution of American sport. But the chorus is growing, the pitch raising a few octaves of outrage. There are long "important" stories emerging from the bastions of journalism. The sort of stories that make Athletic Directors sweat, make coaches cringe, and eventually, make the athletes themselves stand up and take action. This should be inspiring stuff. An uprising coming, college athletes finally speaking up and demanding an end to an unjust colonial past...

Careful what you wish for. This pay-for-play revolution against the NCAA might finally put a fair share of money into the pockets of the young men who earn so many millions for their schools. Those football players who pack 100,000 seat stadiums every fall Saturday, those basketball players who put the money-gushing Madness into March... It could also put a great many of the NCAA's non-revenue sports on life support, making men's college swimming an endangered species, much more so than it already is.

Last month, the Atlantic Monthly published a front page story entitled The Shame of College Sports. When Frank Deford (aka the Greatest Sportswriter in History) called it the "most important article ever written about college sports", the story quickly circulated through the mainstream media. In this exposé, by Pulitzer Prize winner Taylor Branch, the NCAA was revealed as a "classic cartel" with their concept of amateurism a "cynical hoax." Most damningly, Branch exposes the utter fraud that surrounds the term "student-athlete." He points out that this long clung-to term was created with no educational reason whatsoever. It was coined to prevent college athletes from suing their schools for worker's compensation if they were injured on the field of play.

A damning indictment indeed. After reading it, I forwarded it along with passionate support for Branch's case. It was time to start paying these kids, time to strip the cartel of its shameful ways. Power to the players! Or something like that... And then, last week, Sports Illustrated picked up the cause. As they frequently do so well, SI decided to go beyond mere reporting and sought to map out a plan. If we could all agree the NCAA was broken, and if you read Branch's story it's virtually impossible to disagree, then what are we supposed to do to fix it?

SI's answer? Follow the money and start treating college sports like a business. Translation: screw any sport that doesn't make money for the school. Let them figure out how to pay their own way. If they can't figure out how to break even, then good riddance. Wait, what?

In a tone deaf treatise, the SI plan could fairly be termed the "Anti Olympic Sport Plan." This Moneyball Lite attempt at valuing collegiate sport across a broad and misunderstood spectrum could inflict deep wounds to a wide range of Olympic sports - ones long perfected at American colleges.  That doesn't seem to occur to, or at least bother, the sports lovers at SI. Here's how the usually great George Dohrmann described the loss of such sports and their supporters: "Traditionalists will bemoan the loss of some programs, claiming they provided a meaningful service to the university... (But) for the most part, non-revenue varsity sports serve only the participants and a small cadre of supporters." He maps out the savings possible in cutting such sports (ie swimming), and goes on to state that budget-less club sports "offer student-athletes an experience that is at least as rewarding."

Like a hit man who doesn't wish to know the names and backgrounds of the dead men walking on his hit list, the word "swimming" is never mentioned once in Dohrmann's article. (There is one swimmer pictured in the double-page collage of college athletes on the title page, but that's the extent of swimming's presence here...) Sports like wrestling and water polo, gymnastics and rowing, get name-checked in passing, but they too get dismissed as marginalized pastimes closer in character to Ultimate Frisbee than the Final Four. Perhaps hit man was an overly dramatic analogy. A better comparison: a heartless CEO who blindly fires large swathes of workers, no names please, in the cause of corporate efficiency.

For all of the NCAA's obvious sins, the uncomfortable fact remains that much of the money earned from the Big Two revenue-generators, football and basketball, helps pay the way for the rest of many athletic departments. Helps pay for your flights to the conference championships, your coaches' salaries, and most of all, the considerable daily costs of maintaining a 650,000 gallon world class aquatic facility. These things don't come cheap. And there are many who don't want to hear about the revenue-free value swimmers might bring to their college campuses as upstanding student-athletes.

There's the irony. Swimmers, as much as any other athlete, embody the term "student-athlete." It might have been coined with ulterior cynical motives way back when. And the phrase still might be a sham when it comes to so many college football and basketball players. But it remains an accurate and honorable way to describe collegiate aquatic athletes. Nonetheless, they produce zero revenue for a school. No one is paying to come watch your meets. Or at least, seldom and insignificant amounts. No TV networks are clamoring to air your exploits to a wider audience. (Even in the Age of Phelps, TV money for swimming continues to be negligible outside of the Olympics...) But you take a lot. Often into the millions a year for top teams. Yet, financially speaking, you give nothing back. This puts a bulls eye on swimmers' sculpted backs.

Through no fault of their own, the risk to college swimming remains a uniquely men's problem. Due to Title IX, women's sports remain well protected. This reverse gender inequity has led to some misguided resentment among many male swimmers. Don't blame your female teammates. They've earned - and deserve - those scholarships and security. If you want a villain, gentlemen, take aim at your school's football programs. The imbalance created by Title IX's gender equity requirements remains largely due to the fact that there will never be a comparable women's sport that swallows up so many scholarships and forever tips the balance.

But that brings it all back home. The paradox that leaves men's swimming gasping for air in uncertain seas... Your college swim team's very existence could be largely due to the money generated by your school's football and basketball teams. Your football and basketball teams' existence is founded on a dark colonial past (and present) that uses its players without regard for their off-the-field well-being or academic standing - and does not share with them the spoils that they earned.

As you can see, this could get ugly very quickly. The component of race becomes unavoidable. The perception could become one of non-revenue teams of predominantly white athletes being carried along by money-making teams of predominantly African American athletes. Even without that level of dare-to-tread discomfort, it is a situation of Haves and Haves Nots. With the added twist that the Haves don't really get to have what should fairly be coming to them.

Then of course, there's the looming question of that "free education." That scholarship that's worth, in some cases, in excess of $200,000, all told. The long favored argument of the never-pay-college-athletes camp... Much more on that in weeks to come, but suffice to say, it's neither "free" nor, in plenty of cases, an "education" at all.

Like most issues that matter, there is no clear path here, only complexity. A dose of Herman Cain cluelessness would be nice right now. If only we could reduce it to an easy-to-remember three digit solution... But the reality is that the NCAA has become a deeply flawed and corrupted institution with no idea how to repair itself. It is not doing right by its athletes. After reading Taylor Branch's piece in the Atlantic, I am convinced these athletes deserve a share of the money they generate for their schools. After reading SI's so-called solution, I'm worried that this eventuality could lead to a mass cutting of programs across college swimming, along with the rest of NCAA Olympic sports that do not generate a penny for their schools.

There must be a better way, some solution that rewards the young men who bring heaps of money and prestige to their schools, without punishing their fellow athletes who happen to compete in unmonetized contests. What about allowing the free market to do its thing? Open the door to endorsements for all. If you can make money from a third party, like say Gatorade or your local car dealership, more power to you. This would allow for the likes of Michael Phelps to have competed for the University of Michigan; it would eliminate that ridiculous threshold of fake professionalism that locks out some of the all-time best from competing on the NCAA stage. Just because they were fast enough, young enough, to be valued by companies eager to associate themselves with greatness...

SI published a side bar on this consideration as well. They call it the Free Market Plan, and count me as one of its advocates. I look forward to the day when a phenom like Missy Franklin does not have to make that absurd choice between taking money from a sponsor and swimming in college. Yet, before we all breath a sigh of relief and pour our faith in the invisible hand of the market, consider for a moment how college football might look if agents and boosters and the rest of the sport's slippery remora were actually allowed to put money in their players' pockets. You think things are corrupt now? Just wait until Auburn's next transfer Heisman quarterback can sell his services out in the open to every SEC school...

As the debate continues, in national magazines and athletic departments across the country, safe to say swimming won't be a priority on too many agendas. That is, until every fourth year, when the world decides to perk up and pay attention to the Olympic Games' most popular sport. And when that happens, I wonder how many will take the time to count how many of those world class aquatic specimens were produced in NCAA pools now earmarked for elimination?

Comeback Junkies

He left the press conference for his more famous friend. The one who had more gold medals than any countryman before him. He had a few too, was also among Australia's all-time greats, but by comparison, his news didn't feel all that newsworthy. Another comeback. By another Olympic champion. Welcome aboard, Michael Klim. The comeback trail is crowded these days, packed with aquatic icons who can't quite stay away...

When Ian Thorpe announced his intentions, it was sponsored by Richard Branson, as the Virgin mega-mind used the Thorpedo's return as a fine opportunity to announce Virgin Blue's latest international route. (You didn't think Thorpe was actually going to train for London in Abu Dhabi, did you?) When Michael Klim announced his own comeback, he chose a bit less corporate pomp. His venue? A comedy radio show, with a handful of local TV news cameras crowded into the studio.

Eleven years ago at the Sydney Games, these two were elevated to god-like stature Down Under. I remember an office tower in downtown Sydney whose entire 50 stories on one side was covered in a long picture of a pool, with Thorpe and Klim, along with (the still retired) Susie O'Neill swimming up lanes stretching hundreds of feet into the air. (Just one example; probably plenty...) Now, three Games removed, their legend-status engraved for all-time, these Aussie gents are hooked again, and they're not alone.

Stateside, have a look at the list of confirmed comebackers back on the sauce: Janet Evans, Brendan Hansen, Anthony Ervin, Ed Moses. And those are just the Olympic champs back in the mix. Rumors have swirled about an Ian Crocker comeback. (Still no official paperwork filed, according to USA Swimming...) And at the risk of starting a rumor, word is that Aaron Peirsol has yet to file his retirement paperwork. Perhaps leaving a door to Trials slightly ajar...

Across the pond, France's drama-soaked freestyle queen, Laure Manaudou, is immersed in a comeback of her own. England's ageless sprint ace, Mark Foster, is said to be contemplating another crack at it on home soil. And who could blame him? He's the male Brit version of Dara Torres. Both obscenely ripped sprint specimens who should not be allowed to look so mockingly good into their 40's.

Maybe it's Torres who's to blame for all these second acts. Did she make it look too damn easy? Would anyone be surprised to see her on the blocks in London too? She'll be 45 next summer. Back in 2000, a 15-year-old Michael Phelps used to call her "mom." A dozen years later, Missy Franklin could refer to her as "grandma."

Should this spate of comebacks be christened 'Torres Syndrome'? Surely, the thought must have crossed Janet Evans' mind as she considered her return to competitive waters. Evans was twice the swimmer Torres was. No comparison. Back in 1988, when Janet was the greatest female swimmer on the planet, Torres was a relay swimmer, earning a single bronze as a member of the women's 4x100 free. There's no question that Torres has been a compelling example for all these folks. The question is - what kind of example has she set?

You read about these comebacks and the lines are all the same. It's for the love of the sport... The fire still burns... I have unfinished business... I wanted to be a part of the Olympics just once more... Or as Klim put it recently to Craig Lord of Swim News: "We're all doing it for the same reason: swimming was a big part of our lives and we still feel it."

But what is it that you feel? Because this culture of comebacks sounds an awful lot like a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, a crew of relapsed junkies who just happen to be hooked on a drug of pure Olympism. It's hard to imagine two more polar opposite clans. The heroin addict and the Olympic champion. At distant ends of the spectrum of society's respect. One group, pitied and reviled, the other, praised on the ultimate sporting pedestal. Yet at the extremes, we always find similarities...

Consider: For both groups, the junkie and the Olympian, the "it" is two-fold, and exactly the same. They miss the high, for one. And as good as a heroin high must surely feel, it can't compare to the high of standing on top of an Olympic podium. But that's only part of it. The bigger part, the essential part, is about the lifestyle. It's a common refrain among ex-addicts. They talk of the purity of purpose, of the single-mindedness that gets them through each day. Where the rest of the world has daily to-do lists, headaches to confront and check off each and every day, the addict has only one concern: how to continue the high.

As does the swimmer back on the Olympic trail. All those worldly concerns that invaded your life after retirement? Your job, your family, your bills. Back on the backburner! Because as each of these comebackers knows, as every swimmer who's ever appeared in any Olympics knows, getting to the Games demands total sacrificial commitment. To the point of setting aside the rest of your life and acknowledging it for what it is - distractions. Distractions that get in the way of the one thing you care about more than anything else... That high. That feeling of invincibility, of total bliss, when there is nothing but the now, nothing but the passion to get what you need, what you've had before, and what you must have again...

Junkies are reviled, and rightly so, because their need and their bliss is self-destructive and false. Olympians, at the other end, are praised because that same need is believed to come from a pure and true place. They are not destroying their bodies, but elevating them to ultimate levels of perfection. But the motivation, the drive, the personality is all too similar.

Years ago, when Aussie great Susie O'Neill (remember, the one on that Sydney building not making a comeback?) retired, a reporter asked her what she would miss most about swimming. Her answer was honest and heartbreaking. She said: "I'll miss never being the best in the world at anything else ever again."

That's a hard addiction to kick. As her fellow Olympic champions, now immersed in comebacks, know all too well...

The Phelps Effect

Is the cupboard bare for Team USA? Beneath the superstar surface, all was not well at the World Championships in Shanghai. While Phelpte, the two-headed headline monster, was not so quietly collecting twelve medals between them, there was a curious void among the rest of the American men. Yes, Ryan Lochte was the new king, we read all about it. And yes, Michael Phelps was back, re-motivated and back to his astonishing self. But where were the rest of them? Not on the podium. Not in the breaststrokes, nor the sprint frees, nor the distance events, not even in the 100 back - for decades (yes, literally decades) the single most dominant event in American men's swimming. Where was that devastating depth, for so long the hallmark of Team USA?

Aside from Tyler Clary, who collected a silver and a bronze behind Mr. Lochte in the 400 IM and 200 back, and Tyler McGill, who claimed bronze in the 100 fly behind Mr. Phelps, no other American men appeared on the World Championships podium in an individual event. Perhaps most tellingly, the men struggled mightily to win the race that has always been a foregone conclusion - the 4 x 100 medley relay. With pedestrian mid-pack splits on the front half, it was up to Mr. Phelps to deliver a crushing fly split that supplied Nathan Adrian with enough of a lead to hold off the charging Aussie James Magnussen on the end. The two-tenth victory was their slimmest margin for gold ever in a major competition; it was also almost five full seconds slower than the world record (albeit a tainted suit-assisted record from '09...). It's dangerous to read too much into one meet, but it's also hard to ignore a wider trend here.

Call it the Phelps Effect. Wherein the talent and ambition of fellow countrymen is drained and daunted in the face of insurmountable dominance... Well, insurmountable for all but one, it seems. Ryan Lochte hasn't been daunted, and now, as this is typed, he has surpassed Phelps as the consensus top swimmer on earth. Not by much, to be sure. But there is no one else even remotely in the running. Which would seem to make Lochte the exception that proves an uncomfortable rule...

In a terrific Sports Illustrated profile on Lochte in the lead-up to Shanghai, Bob Bowman gave credence to this Phelps Effect. "Michael has destroyed a lot of people psychologically," said Bowman. "There are a number of swimmers who came up against Michael, found it impossible to beat him and just gave up. But Ryan was never fazed."

No one on the planet has witnessed that as up close as the Great One's own coach. While Bowman is hardly objective in his assessment, he's not wrong. And he's not the only one to voice it. One of Phelps' former training partners at the University of Michigan has personally told me as much. "He just broke spirits," said this swimmer. "He certainly did it to me." This from a former National Team member and multiple time All-American at Michigan. He went on to tell me about glancing underwater off of turns in workouts and watching Phelps' utterly depressing superiority. "He's just so much better, so much more efficient, it makes you question what you're doing."

While talent can't be faked or willed into being, it's confidence that has always separated the very good from the great. Unshakeable, blind, smiling, eternal confidence. The sort embodied by Ryan Lochte. Of his many admirable traits, it's that unshakeable self-confidence that allowed Lochte to surpass, for now, his mighty rival. And it was certainly given a good hard shake - to the tune of a couple dozen head-to-head defeats in major competitions.

A few years back, on the bottom of the world, another theory of talent drain was floated by a swim-obsessed Aussie media. Back then it was the Thorpe Effect, as the Australians wondered aloud whether or not Ian Thorpe's prodigious achievements had scared away the next generation in his wake. Predictably, there were howls of protests from the coaching quarters. That's ridiculous, they insisted. Not my swimmers, they snorted. If anything wouldn't Thorpe have inspired and motivated, rather than discouraged? Well, yes and no. No one was denying that, long term, Thorpe raised the standard of excellence for his Aussie torchbearers, challenging those who came next to dream that much bigger. But what of his contemporaries, swimmers the same age or just a bit younger? Among this group, there appears to be evidence that the Thorpe Effect was all too real. That is, until it was cured this year.

In the years between Ian Thorpe's retirement and recent comeback, the Aussie men seemed to regress. Indeed, in 2010, there was not a single Australian man ranked in the top six in the world in any freestyle event. It was as if Thorpe, along with compatriot Grant Hackett, had snuffed out the will of their immediate heirs apparent. A few years had to pass before it was ok for Aussie freestylers to ascend the podium again. In 2011 at the Worlds, they shook off the Effect with some statement-making swims. Led by 20-year-old James Magnussen and his 4x100 free relay teammates, the Aussie mates rediscovered their mojo. We all knew it was temporary, but that doesn't mean the Thorpe Effect didn't exist.

At least for the men. It must be noted that this strange will-sucking ailment does not appear to cross gender lines. It appears to have an inverse effect among the women. As the Aussie men struggled over the last five years or so, the Australian women surged. Just as a growing crop of American women, led by the incredible Missy Franklin, appear to be shaping up as Team USA's deepest women's squad in over a decade.

Deny it all you like, coaches, but the same thing is now happening stateside. Consider Team USA without the Phelpte monster for a moment. Who would be the face of the franchise? Before your next-best knee-jerk reply, let's acknowledge that a face of the USA Swimming franchise should probably be a world record holder who is expected to win gold, as the clear dominating favorite... Meaning certain would-be champions in waiting still have some (im)proving to do. Sure there are insane talents on the rise, who will surely be an international presence soon enough. (Yes, watch out for David Nolan, Ryan Murphy, et all...) But those phenoms still have a few years to ripen. Until then, get ready for symptoms of the Phelps Effect to worsen before they get better.

Unless of course Ryan Lochte would care to share the vaccine.