I know what you’re thinking. Two posts that close together? What’s going on? Is Swim Aids back? Well, I hope so! Anyway…

I’m all about spreading the love, even for projects that I’m not involved in. So, welcome to “The Pimpin’ Corner”, where I give a little plug to someone or something in the swimming community.

Two of our absolutely favoritest swimmers, Klete Keller and Davis Tarwater, have joined forces to form Big Fish Clinics.

Kletus and T-Dub!! will offer one-day clinics, multiple-day camps, speaking engagements and parent workshops. If I’m a swimmer or a swim parent, I’m all over this. It’s amazing to think that both of these guys’ larger-than-life personalities will be able to fit in the same room in order to conduct a clinic. You will learn and laugh a lot. Seriously. Just check ‘em out!

So I realized that I didn’t do one of these yesterday and now, unfortunately, the days are starting to blur together. So here goes on another edition of “Tales From The Deck”

After tonight’s session we felt extreme sadness. I’m talking like being on the verge of tears. Why, you ask? Because T-Dub!! finished 3rd in the men’s 200 Fly, thus not making the Olympic Team. I don’t know if there was anyone else in the meet we wanted on the team more than him, so when Gil Stovall swam the race of his life (props to him, that was badass!) we knew Davis‘ chances at punching a ticket for Beijing were reduced to zero. But he left it all in the pool. That was his best time. For our own selfish reasons, we want him to continue one more year — like a couple of his teammates — but we understand if he’s ready to move on. Seeing how upset his mom (whom we adore) was after the race, was almost too much to bear.

And the sadness didn’t end with T-Dub!! It also extended to Miss Kaitlin, a regular Swim Aid reader. She’s been fighting a string of health maladies and injuries in recent months, the after effects causing her to lose critical strength and stamina. But, she’s been dealing with it like a champ and with the smile we’ve all come to love. She’s going to be in the AquaZone Friday, so everyone go, say “hi”, and wish her well! And please know that she’s ok. She wants people to know she’s not on suicide watch or anything.

Other National Team veterans who look to be on the outside looking in include Tara Kirk, Rachel Komisarz, and Neil Walker. Both Tara and Neil were regular Team USA captains. So this is going to be an adjustment. Tara has another race in the 200 Breast, but with such a deep women’s field, you just never know! We wish her good luck in that race!

Today’s session really broke our hearts though. There were a lot of happy moments, but I think the sad outweighed the good from our point of view. We were elated at Allison Schmitt and Caroline Burckle making the team. I’ve called Allison to the team before, and as recently as last night. She’s such a great kid and we love how her personality calms others before races. She was classic in her press conference tonight. Classic. It didn’t even sink in that she was on the relay until that presser when a reporter asked her about it.

I’m going to put the rest of this post behind a cut because it is looooooong as hell. I’m not kidding! So get to clickin’ to read on.

Continue Reading »

I’m looking forward to a long night of sleep tonight, but before I do that it’s update time suckas!

1. Keep an eye on SwimNetwork.com in the near future. You’ll be able to get to know yours truly a little better. That includes a little more insight on my work at SwimStars.org

2. Because of the previous line, and a couple of other events this weekend, I’m beginning to realize that my so-called anonymity is disappearing in the swim community. Not sure if that will ultimately be a good or bad thing! I guess I’ll have to wait and see!

3. Everyone send good thoughts to dear ol’ T-DUB (Davis Tarwater, for those of you who are new around here). He’s sick and shouldn’t have even made the trip down to Columbus for the Grand Prix. Get better, playa! Pimpin’ aint easy, and you can’t do it when you’re sick.

4a. I am personally taking credit for “breaking” PVK. It’s taken a while, but I finally have him trained very well. Not only does he look more comfortable on the awards podium, but he poses for my camera too. Another thing we Swim Aids have been chomping at the bit to witness was a show of any kind of emotion out of him after a race. Well, I got to see first-hand, the Vander-fist-pumpâ„¢. It was well worth the wait and I successfully captured it for all to see. No, not right now. Later. Although I will be sending his mama the first picture. She couldn’t be here this weekend and I know she’d love to see it!

4b. BTW, props, again, to PVK for his 400 & 1500 Free swims. Holy cow!

5. Felicia Lee swam 5746726094 races his weekend and still had a smile on her face at the end of the night. She’s too cute. Unfortunately, I was unable to fold her up and put her in my pocket. There’s always next time!

6. I got caught in the crush of young fans/volunteers trying to get autographs from PVK, Phelps, and Kaitlin. They told me they were leaving immediately after the session to head back up to Ann Arbor, so I was getting in my social time then. I wasn’t planning on sticking around that long, but before I knew it, I was surrounded. So I just went with the flow, helping fans get their autographs and taking pictures for them as they posed with the CWers. I always enjoy seeing the swimmers interact with their fans. I can almost picture them, when they were younger, doing the same thing. There were so many fans that wanted autographs, but they had to leave and hit the road, so the informal signing was cut short. I got a couple of shots of Phelps, but couldn’t take any of PVK and Kaitlin since they were signing right next to me. I don’t make a habit of sticking Bertha right in the face of someone standing inches from me. Talk about awkward!

7. It’s been a while since I’ve covered a full meet. Now I’m itching for another. Could it be Santa Clara? We’ll see!

8. My SPA groupies wanted to go out after their coach went to sleep, but there aren’t any places near campus or downtown that don’t card, so they were out of luck there. That may have been different if my brother, who works as a bouncer, were working tonight. But alas, he wasn’t, so no party there.

9. I shall miss Peter Bick, but I will see him at Trials. If I do make it to Santa Clara, it will be weird to not pal around with him. However, if I’m at Santa Clara, I’ll have my dear kiwi to keep me company!

10. Final Thoughts: I really hope that this Ohio State Grand Prix is a yearly event. I really like having a big national meet here in my own backyard. It’s nice to not always have to travel to meets. I thought everything went really well and the meet ran very smoothly, was well-attended by fans and top swimmers alike, and featured some fast swimming. Can’t ask for much more, can you?

Remember back in 2005, at the World Champs in Montreal, where we heard all about (and saw) the US diver that smacked her head on the board while attempting a dive?

Remember how they showed its replay over and over again?

Well, I remember that my dad showed me a full paged picture of the diver. He also said that she was from Columbus. I completely forgot that last tidbit until I watched the late local news on NBC4 last night. (They’ve been showing a lot of love to swimming recently!)

Turns out that the diver was none other than the recently crowned 2008 3m NCAA diving champion, Chelsea Davis, of Ohio State!

See, you really do learn a new thing every day!

P.S. If you were living under a rock and missed the original story, click here.

And not just because their facilities are the shizz. And no, there weren’t cheerleaders on deck tonight either.

I have to give it up for Ohio State.

I know, I know. This never happens. Maybe I’m turning the corner? Maybe you guys should question my Michigan fanhood?

Nah, I wouldn’t go that far. Although I am starting to turn when it comes to football. Don’t tell anyone else, though! What can I say? I miss Mike Hart, Jake Long, Chad Henne, Mario Manningham, Lloyd Carr….the list goes on and on. There isn’t anyone else on their roster that I feel connected to. As a result, my cousin is starting to turn me into a Buckeye football fan. Yes, hell has frozen over. That’s not the point of this post, though.

The point is that Ohio State finished in 15th place (yes, 15th) at the NCAA Championships hosted in their home pool. What was most impressive is that they did it solely with diving points. I can’t recall if I’ve ever seen the OSU women crack the top 25 of the CSCAA dual meet rankings and rightly so. So for them to rock it with a Top 15 finish, without any swimming points, is extremely impressive!

My hat goes off to coach Vince Panzano, and I’m not the only one who is tipping their hat. Coach Panzano was named the NCAA Diving coach of the Year during tonight’s session. Not to be outdone, OSU diver Chelsea Davis was named NCAA Diver of the Year; an honor she shares with Miami’s Brittany Viola and Hawaii’s Emma Friesen.

Another tidbit is that none of OSU’s divers are seniors (1 junior and 2 freshmen), so provided they don’t regress, OSU will be able to count on all of those points at next year’s meet. Wonder if any of the swimmers will help the divers out next time around. Only time will tell!

JOE DOYLE RULES

NOTE: I needed to add that shout-out in this post, since I saw him tonight. It was nice to see him come out and show his support.

We’ve already displayed our venom for Wasserman Media Group on here before, but there are new things going on that sadden us.

We don’t know the details, but Garrett at FloSwimming has been suspended from covering USA Swimming competitions.

I will preface most of this post by stating that I absolutely do not know the entire story behind this move. From an outsiders perspective it just looks bad.

I also have been informed by WCSN that they own the rights to the Grand Prix meets. I’m not sure where WMG comes into the picture, but I’m they’re in the mix somewhere. Regardless, this has created a mess for fans of the sport!

The Missouri Grand Prix was stupid fast. Absolutely ridiculous. Why are we not allowed to see footage from that competition? Why are the powers that be sitting on these races? When will we see them, if we see them at all?

My situation is definitely different than what’s going on at floswimming, but I feel like this will be the standard when it comes to USAS competitions and that saddens me. If you can’t get to the meet yourselves, pickings will be slim.

This is all very frustrating for those of us who put so much time, money, and energy into promoting swimming. It effectively clips our wings and those who have to suffer are the fans and participants in the sport.

Anyone else have more info on this story?

P.S. I don’t want my media credentials revoked too, so don’t expect me to post much (if any) race footage from meets I cover from the deck. These days, our vids tend to mostly be goofy, like Davis telling us about his 400 Free prelim at the Eric Namesnik GP meet last year. We have some plans for some Swim Aid shenanigans, but now we know that none of those will include any races!

ETA: The 2 WCSN reps I spoke to, who told me the co. owned grand prix footage, seemed to have mispoken. They were referring to Diving Grand Prix meets, while I was asking about swimming competitions. WCSN has nothing to do with the Toyota Grand Prix Circuit.

We call this picture of Davis Tarwater from Michigan’s 2005 home dual meet vs. Georgia “Gangsta T-Dub!!”

Yes, we were there. We were hardcore that season.

That is all.