A Vanderkaay named Peter has many nicknames. We’ve heard PVK, Big P, and Vander in addition to the ones we’ve given him such as Jesus and Cracker (loonnnng story that we’re not going to share). But Vandy is a new one to us.

After PVK wrecked shop in Canet, WCSN put up a link to his meet record-setting performance in the 400 Free under the heading “Vandy Breaks Record”. The link also appeared on the live video window. I’ll be honest, after watching a good portion of the 2nd day of action (and staring at the links on the side), it finally dawned on me that Vandy = Vanderkaay. Then I rolled my eyes.

Is it that WCSN feels so comfortable with Pete in all his Vanderness to give him a nickname? Or has he finally crossed over into the big leagues where the masses need a new & fun name to refer to him as? My vote is for neither of these scenarios. Someone just thought they were being cute. Yea, that’s our job!

It wouldn’t have taken that much more space in the layout for them to spell out Vanderkaay. And I’m certain I wasn’t alone when I exclaimed:

Vandy? Who the hell is Vandy?

Flashcards are an excellent tool for studying. So, print these out and practice, practice, practice. We don’t want you to get left behind.

Erik Vendt’s names is spelled with a ‘K’ not a ‘C’.

*cough* swimroom *cough*

Eric Namsnik passed away last year in a car accident. He was an amazing athlete, father, coach, and much more. Let us remember that his name is spelled with a ‘C’ and not a ‘K’.

Is everyone still with us?

Lastly,

Kaitlin Sandeno is just to amazing too have her name misspelled. Kaitlin not Kaitlyn or even Kaitlynn. This one should be a no brainer but we just thought we would remind you. It is a review session afterall.

We try to spread the love around when we’re at meets. The “Swim Stars” keep us pretty busy, so we don’t have as much free time in which to snap shots of other swimmers. However, we always do manage to get some pics of athletes we don’t directly promote on SwimStars.org. And we’re going to share some of those with you now; along with some commentary.

There are 8 pictures in all in the post, so you need to check out the cut to see all of them. You also need to click the thumbnail picture to see the full size. Most of the pictures are too wide to fit with our site layout, so the thumbnails are posted. I’m not trying to break our Swim Aids shrine (like Carrie & Erika do when they post).

We usually loiter around starting blocks at meets for our pictures. That just wasn’t working out on Canham’s tiny-ass deck. With bleachers out, there are like 3 inches of deck in which to move around. That’s way too cramped for our liking. So, we spent most of the meet at the 50m turn, which makes for amazing shots of the fly and breast.

And no, these pictures are not all of Club Wolverine swimmers, you smartasses!

This is Mr. Alex Vanderkaay’s fly leg of his 400 IM prelim. First event we shot from the turn and loved the results. There’s a full set of these AVK pictures, but you’ll need to talk to Alex himself — or his mother — if you want to see them all. We kinda have a system going.

We attempted to take pictures from the blocks on the first day and they all pretty much sucked…except for this start shot of Charlie Houchin’s 400 Free prelim. Go fig!

Future Wolverine Dan Madwed during his 200 Free Final. And don’t ask me about the random blue line going through the picture. I haven’t the slightest idea where it came from! Up in A2, Dan’s coach started the campaign for him to be added to Swim Stars. I can’t hate. Paul Y. is my favorite coach. He could tell me to jump and I’d ask “how high?”. I kid.

Now before any nasty rumors start spreading, we ask that you not take the title of this post the wrong way. There is no hanky panky going on between ANY of the Swim Aids and the CWers. Referring to someone as a “CW Whore” is a figure of speech, and not something to take literally, ok?

Isn’t it sad that we had to give that little disclaimer? Because some people have seriously defective “sarcasm radars”, it became a matter of necessity.

And because this list was basically never-ending, there are a bonus 10 items, effectively making this a Top 20 List.

ENJOY!

So we are back from our always-eventful trip to Ann Arbor for the Eric Namesnik Memorial Grand Prix. Actually, we got back last night, but were far too exhausted to give any reports. Over the course of our stay, we got a grand total of 12 hours of sleep. So yes, that is 12 hours spread out over 3 nights. How we functioned is beyond me.

So we return to our respective lives in Ohio and California with more stories to add to our Swim Vault. Unfortunately for y’all, we can’t share all of them. It’s not that we don’t want to; it’s that we were pretty much sworn to secrecy by Mama VDK and Papa Tarwater. So, no dish from them!

But we’ve got other stories, and we’ll roll them out on here, provided we don’t forget them before then. You know how it is.

The trip also inspired another Top 10 List, which is going to be supersized into a Top 20 List because we really couldn’t narrow it down to just 10 items.

The overall word of the meet was “socialize”, because really, that’s pretty much all we did when we weren’t updating Swim Stars Live. No really. We were constantly visiting our friends (and fellow swim fans) in the stands, meeting new people, catching up with swim parents, or teasing our favorite swimmers. And yes, they love it. Especially the one who currently resembles our lord and savior.

The Asian was absolutely awesome this weekend! We are so glad he is back in the pool and competing! And, as usual, every single picture that we took of him came out spectacular. The kid is just too photogenic for his own good.

We will also share some pictures of swimmers who aren’t necessarily covered on SwimStars.org. For example, we know AVK has some major fangirls out there who are always dying to see pictures of him. Who are we to deny them that bounty? We aim to please, remember? Speaking of Alex, we finally met him this weekend. Very nice guy; contrary to what we’ve been told over the past couple of years by a person we now know to be clinically insane. No, really. Said individual should be locked up wearing a straight jacket. But we won’t get into that because that leads to drama, and the Swim Aids are finally drama-free and loving it!

We also made some decisions about the general direction SwimStars.org is headed in. They are dramatic changes, but we are confident it will prove to make our work in promoting the sport’s athletes more efficient and effective. We’ll keep you posted!

So there’s a quick rundown of our trip. Be sure to check back for more stories and commentary. We promise you won’t be bored!

So we’ve been enjoying ourselves at the Eric Namesnik Grand Prix and we just thought we’d share that we miss Klete. It just doesn’t look or feel right with him not being around. No one else is as entertaining, nor is anyone else carrying on his pre-race yawn tradition.

Someone else needs to step up ASAP and entertain us! I nominate T-DUB!! as the next heir to the throne. The dude is hilarious. Seriously.

As the months go by, our admiration for this certain swimmer named T-Dub! grows. After this evening’s “show” on the pool deck, he has vaulted himself into the top spot on the Swim Aids Favorites list. Not many have made it to the summit, so we congratulate our dear T-Dub on finding that special place in our hearts tonight. Oh, and also for making our cheeks hurt. (Not like that, you sickos. He makes us laugh…a LOT!)

Now we also must note that while Davis has made a large leap tonight, others are falling out of Swim Aid favor. We’re not naming names, but if a certain someone would like to continue to receive the benefit of our hard work on SwimStars.org, they need to step it up and stop being a massive snob.

So, anyway, we had a hard time functioning enough to get together any video, but we managed to get some hilarious words from Davis before he left the building. We are sharing them with you below: