For a grand total of 4 hours last night and this afternoon swimming came back into my life!

It’s been a very long stretch since I last covered an event. And while I wouldn’t call what I was doing this weekend “covering”, it was still nice to experience.

Everyone knows of my love affair with the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion on the Ohio State University Campus. It’s literally one of the nicest facilities I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to quite a few in the past 4.5 years. I went to the Ohio State vs. Kenyon meet, back in October, but that didn’t do a whole lot for me. In my heart, I knew it wouldn’t be right unless the men of the Maize and Blue were in the house.

This weekend they were and I couldn’t have been happier! Not just because I rep for Club Wolverine, but because it meant I got to gossip with one of my fave sets of swim parentals: the Vanderkaays. If you don’t know, you betta ask somebody! Anyway, OSU hosted a big quad-meet that brough Northwestern, Penn State, and Michigan to town. In addition, the Penn State women made the trip to duel the OSU women. For those reasons, the meet pretty much had to be broken up into 2 days.

I’m not going to go into details of my QT with mama VDK because that’s just for us two. Plus it would take 50762096720957 years to share all of that and I’ve got a hot date with my bed. He hates when I make him wait.

1. Michigan swimmers look really, really, really happy and relaxed under Coach Bottom. You come to your own conclusions.

2. Northwestern’s parental section wasn’t very big, but they were a lively bunch who kept me laughing.

3. For the first time, I actually saw Michigan swimmers interaction with the parents and doing *gasp* group and crowd cheers! I thought I was in some sort of alternate universe.

4. PVK and AVK are the only CW pros left

5. I miss T-Dub!!

6. If you would combine the Michigan and Northwestern rosters, they still wouldn’t be as big as the OSU men’s team’s list…WOW

7. The meet announcer seemed confused and couldn’t figure out that when you add an ‘e’ to the end of Dan, it becomes DANE and does not remain DAN.

8. On that note, Mark Patton does not exist. You meant Matt Patton. Or, as we like to call him around these parts: Matty P.

9. It was quite warm in McCorkle. I’d rather be hot, during the winter, than cold.

10. I loved seeing the overall improvement in sprinting out of the Michigan boys. Very nice.

11. Also nice to see The Asian in his role as statisticians/videographer. I don’t know what it is about me — or maybe it’s everyone — but the boy seems incredibly uncomfortable around me. I went to say hello after the meet and “awkward” was the best way I could describe our lightening fast exchange! I can’t prove it, but I’m pretty sure, when he sees me, he sees this. No lie. Anyway, I kept it short, since he looked so terrified (lol), wished him well, congratulated him on his engagement, and then hit the road! I didn’t know I was so intimidating… I mean, if Peter Vanderkaay can hold his own with me, without looking like he wants to sprint in the opposite direction, I figured the Asian could too. WRONG! Perhaps I should start to use that to my advantage…I kid, I kid. I don’t bite!

12. It’s nice to be able to use an Ohio State parking pass to avoid long lines in the parking garage.

13. Brutus the Buckeye showed up to kick off today’s session, but he didn’t stick around. (Sorry, Erika, no pictures). I’m sure he had other things to do… you know, like shovel sidewalks.

14. I met the Pattons and they were very nice. I honestly have yet to meet a swim parental who wasn’t nice. Seriously.

15. Men’s Big Ten’s at Ohio State next year? Sa-weeeeet!

16. OSU has a token darkie on their sqaud. Represent!

17. This meet had the potential to be really awkward down on deck. The new Ohio State women’s coach coached both the men and women’s squads at Penn State last year. I wasn’t watching enough to see how all that went down.

18. When you haven’t seen someone in ages, you know how it is. You talk so much that you miss out on everything going on around you. I did not take a single picture yesterday! I took some today, though. I’ll sift through them eventually. I had to bring Bertha and Bessie to make sure I didn’t forget how to shoot pictures at swim meets. July was a long time ago, yo.

19. I finally found out why Pete was wearing a FS-PRO for his 200 Free final at Trials. Chalk it up to another LZR suit zipper malfunction. This one was mere minutes before the final, so a quick change was necessary! PVK didn’t even need that LZR to make the team. Take that!

20. Speaking of zipper issues, it amused me to know end how all of the Michigan guys needed assistance zipping theirs up. Sometimes it took 2+ extra sets of hands.

21. I got a free Ohio State shirt! Well, let me stop lying. Mama VDK got one, and then gave it to me. Free shirts were handed out to the first 200 people through the doors. And since I roll on CP time, and obviously wasn’t there early enough, I didn’t get one. I’ve noticed that I rarely get to meets on time anymore, with the exception of Trials. Since I don’t have to jockey for the best seats (Thanks, USA Swimming!), the need to show up early has decreased. I think we all internalized that and now we’re always late haha!

22. I still miss Kaitlin.

23. It’s weird seeing Dan Madwed without Paul Yetter nearby, running up and down the deck.

23b. I miss Paul.

24. Mama VDK told me the most hilarious story about her dinner last night. Some people take the OSU/Michigan rivaly entirely too far! And it’s really sad when those taking it too far are ADULTS, who are very far removed from being students at the University (if they even attended to begin with). If you’re middle aged and giving a person shit because they have on a Michigan shirt on campus, you’ve clearly failed at life and should kill yourself. Just kidding. Kind of.

And not that I really needed to share this, but Michigan totally dominated the meet. They’ve got so much depth it’s almost unfair. Great showing by the team! I have a video of the final event; the 200 Free Relay. I shot it with my iPhone. Yes, my iPhone. I jailbroke that sucker earlier this week and life has been even more grand than before. Didn’t think that was possible!

Anyway, it’s glad to see a Michigan team beat Ohio State at something, since their headliners can’t seem to get it done…OH SNAP! Yea, I went there! Sorry boys. When it comes to football, I’m on the other side of the fence. All Buckeye! 5 in a row, baby!

This wasn’t what I’d call a juicy meet. First of all, I wasn’t even on deck. And second, my posse of Swim Aids were not present. You’ll get better stories when it’s a group outing.

Having said all that, I know y’all aren’t complaining. I wrote a lengthy post on here for the first time in ages. You’re all smiling right now, aren’t you? Yup. Thought so.

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