The 70s called.

They want their porn stache back. So, if you could go ahead and get that to them, that would be grrrrreat. Thanks.

<< This has been another Swim Aids Public Service Announcement >>

P.S. Bonus keepin’ it real points to whomever can name the movie I referenced in this post!

It’s no secret that my love for all things Michigan swimming took a hit when RegFly stole my mgoswim.com domain away from me. Don’t you worry, though. Every night, I bust out my RegFly voo-doo doll. They’ll get theirs!

Anyway, the love hasn’t really left, so it will be openly expressed right here on our Swim Aid shrine, just like it originally was, pre-domain.

I’m bringing it back with a congratulatory post. Michigan junior Chris Brady was recently named to the 2010 Order of Angell class.

Because I’m not that “in the know”, with regards to clubs and societies in the greater Michigan community, I’ll simply direct everyone to Wikipedia for further explanation.

Make no mistake. This is a big friggin’ deal!

Swim Aid favorite, PVK, is also a member of this select group of Michigan Men, as is one of my all-time favorite football players, Mike Hart.

At last month’s NCAA Championships in College Station, TX, Chris earned 4 All-America honors in the 400-yard medley relay (8th), 200-yard medley relay (7th), 100-yard butterfly (4th), and 400-yard freestyle relay (6th).

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. Continue Reading »

Before I forget, here are some quick observations from watching NBC’s Olympic Coverage:

1. Why hasn’t the Lochtenator busted out his grillz? I hope they didn’t confiscate them! The world needs to see his grillz because “the whole top diamonds and da bottom row’s gold”.

2. Isn’t it refreshing to see the medals ceremony girls not looking like hoochies? That was one of my beefs from Trials.

3. It’s kind of stupid that NBC is tape-delaying coverage of the West Coast. Heard that the Al Jazeera feed has come to the rescue for some. May want to check it out!

4. Watching the Olympics, I’m doing a whole lot of thinking about who the next generation of “Swim Stars” are gonna be since I’m going to lose quite a few to retirement.

5. Speaking of Swim Stars, the sites are back online and functioning. It was a very stressful stretch when I couldn’t access any of them nor their control panels, but it all seems to be worked out. *knock on wood*

6. I love me some gymnastics, don’t get me wrong. Attempts at watching gymnastics back in Athens is what drew me into swimming. However, I’m not thrilled that we don’t get to see a lot of the semifinal races because of the gymnastics coverage.

7. Is it bad that I could still pick out Bob’s whistle while watching races?

8. My heart broke for The Hoff tonight.

9. I’m not going to lie. There were “man tears” for me when PVK won the bronze in the 200 Free. That’s my dawg. So proud of him.

10. GREEEEEVERRRRRSSSS

ETA: 11. Our Trials need to be in March, not early July. Period.

And if you knew me personally, you’d understand how huge that statement is!

Our dear Ryk, whom the Swim Aids refer to as “The Hotness”, has an autobiography coming out this fall and some snippets are starting to leak.

In the book, titled Chasing the Dream, we will get some insight into his longterm relationship with Miss Amanda Beard a few years back. (Hottest. Swim. Couple. Ever.) We also learn more about how he got into the sport, which was that he almost drowned as a 5 year old. How PVK-esque!

Other topics include the reasoning behind turning down Qatar’s offer to race for them, as well as why he still calls South Africa home.

In other words, I am intrigued. I want to read this book. And I don’t read books. Such power Ryk holds. This has the potential to be simply dangerous!

Also, Ryk recently turned down an offer to be the next “Bachelor” for ABC. He only wants to concentrate of preparing for Beijing, like a good little Olympic athlete. That’s unfortunate, though. And by unfortunate, I mean for us Swim Aids. Because if there’s one thing American TV needs, it’s a healthy dose of “The Hotness”. Maybe Dancing With The Stars will come calling too? I don’t care what show it is. My ass is going to watch. Just keepin’ it real!

I’ve been home for almost 12 hours now, but haven’t done anything productive. Don’t judge me! I didn’t sleep at all last night. I mean, what’s the point when you have a 5AM flight, right?

Anyway, now that Jason has ruined our fun, I have to move on to other memorable moments from the final day of the 2008 US Olympic Team Trials. I would also like to state that being able to type this on my own computer, as opposed to my Sidekick phone, is a relief. Maybe it won’t take me 52095720 years to write this!

Sleeping in yesterday was glorious. Since I operate on “vampire time”, it was like being at home! We were out pretty late (at Farrell’s, of couse) but when we came back to our hotel, we stayed up a loooooong time! I’ll come back to some Farrell’s talk later because there are some things that we must vent about.

So the pool action. It was brief, no? But very exciting! Dara Torres’ agent, Evan, emailed me before the session and predicted a win and the American Record. He nailed that one! And how about Miss Jessica Hardy?! She amazes me! How many people are able to be world class breaststrokers and sprint freestylers? Recently, I can only think of one; Jessica! We got to meet her father earlier in the week, which was great because after you trade emails with people enough, you want to actually meet them face-to-face.

And I know I’ve already talked about this, but PVK tore shit up in that 1500 Free! I was like “Dayum! Where did that come from?!” I am so proud of him. Like seriously! He went from the label of “relay swimmer” back in 2004, to a bonafide stud in multiple individual events! He could come home from Beijing with 4 medals! And while I was ecstatic for Pete, I couldn’t help but be sad for Erik. I don’t know what happened with him. His prelim time would have put him on the team for this event! We watched that race with his parents and the Vanderkaay and we all saw how Bob was trying to get him to slow down, but he didn’t. Did he maybe expend too much energy? I don’t know. All I know is that I kept waiting for him to make his move, like he usually does, but he never did. Thank goodness he grabbed that last spot for the 800 Free Relay!
Continue Reading »

Soooooo, remember how annoyed I was, in the previous post, with how John Naber was conducting interviews after the awards ceremonies?

I still can’t get over the question he asked Natalie. I mean, seriously. WTF?

Imagine our surprise tonight when the head of media for USA Swimming, Jamie Fabos Olsen, was the one conducting those interviews.

She handled them with much class that was lacking before. Thank you, Jamie!

And how funny was PVK not really hearing her question about him and his brothers all competing together here? He stumbled all over that one! It’s ok, Pete. We still love you!!

I sent him a “good luck” text earlier today, so I’d like to think that’s what pushed him to win tonight. I do have that kind of power, ya know.

Ok, enough of this. I got some partying to do! Last night in Omaha, baby!