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?

If you were expecting a nice and long rundown from today’s prelims, you thought wrong! I was mostly all business during this morning’s session.

1. This session was so short and sweet. It was a nice change from Day 1 & 2, whose prelims seemed to go on forever!

2. If you can get to the Grand Prix in Omaha before Trials, do so. I have it on good authority, that that will be quite the meet!

3. Willa Wang’s mother is crowd fave. And by crowd, I mean the swimmers on deck immediately below her. There are multiple videos of her cheering for her daughter that are making the rounds on deck.

4. There may or may not be a jail break tonight…

5. The Asian may be done swimming…for good. There’ll be more on this on MGoSwim after the meet is finished. I spoke to Coach Bob this morning.

6. I am worried about T-DUB!! Not only has he not seemed himself this meet, but he scratched the 2Fly today.

Here’s the evening update. Hopefully there will be no more haters on here wasting our time.

Anyway…

1. The impossible has happened! I have captured a shot of PVK on the awards stand with a genuine smile on his face! I know, I know. Bow down to me. All it took was a little OSU/Michigan humor and he lit right up.

1a. Before his race, I finally got a chance to catch-up with Pete face-to-face. I realized that I hadn’t gotten to talk to him in person since the Snik meet last year. Now text messages, emails, and facebook are all good and fun, but there’s nothing quite like the Vander-wit up close and personal.

1c. What a strange numbering system I’ve got here, huh? Keeping with the PVK theme, I would just like to say how proud I am of him and his awesome 400 Free tonight. I knew he’d eventually go after Kletus‘ US Open and American Record, but I didn’t think it would be tonight! This isn’t even a taper meet! Look out for PVK this summer yo!

2. Kaitlin, whom I apparently “stalk” was a doll again today. I already told y’all how she refuses to keep the chocolate she gets for placing top 3. Well today, a young fan asked for her autograph after the 400 IM awards. When she was done signing she offered the little girl her chocolate. And the girl made the funniest face! As if to say “why would I want that?” haha. Kaitlin immediately turned around gave her chocolates to me. I don’t refuse chocolate Buckeyes. They are delish! She and I joked that the little girl simply didn’t want Kaitlin’s chocolates since she only finished 2nd.

3. I would like to thank UCLA for ruining my bracket. The game was showing in the hospitality room and I couldn’t stop checking in on the scores throughout the session.

4. No embarassing SPA stories this evening. Shout out to Piper and her big-ass feet. No one that short should wear size 11’s homegirl!

5. Gary Hall just ceases to amaze me. He is beyond amazing with fans. I am in awe. Every time I passed him to shoot a race, he was obliging someone’s request for a picture or autograph. And he just doesn’t sign and then move on. He engages in conversations and the whole she-bang. Very impressed! I just love seeing that.

6. The meet officials at the 50m turn are so friendly. I love being able to chat with them while I’m over there.

7. Maybe we should make a new category called “Peter Bick Owns Us”. Because after this meet, that may very well be true. The jokes never end; especially when we gang up on misbehaving swimmers while on the awards podium. JK, JK.

8. Erik got DQed from his second breaststroke race of the meet. Methinks Bob & co. may need to tinker with his stroke a little.

9. T-Dub is majorly M.I.A. He didn’t swim in finals tonight. I look forward to seeing him in the 2Fly tomorrow.

10. Again, Dan Madwed impressed me. He really pushed Pete in the 400 Free prelims, but in finals, he swam a best time too.

11. I’m not as tired as I was this time last night, but I’m still going to pack it in and head to bed. One more day, friends. One more day!

12. So funny story. NBC4, a news channel here, did another story on the meet. I know, I was surprised too. They said that the reason Mike didn’t swim the 400 Free prelims this morning was because he fell asleep on the diving platform and missed his heat. HAHAHAHA I want to believe that, but I don’t know if I can because I could have sworn that saw him leave with a media rep to do an interview long before the 400 Free heats began. It’s funnier to believe that he was stretching fell asleep! It’s ok, though. He wouldn’t have beat PVK anyway

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.

So, USA Swimming did right by us, earlier this summer, when they published a feature on Alex Vanderkaay. We liked the recognition for him because he had more than earned it.

But what we really wanted was a 20 Question Tuesday. In the back of our minds we thought AVK might be able to give T-DUB a run for his money in terms of 20QT entertainment. If you haven’t ready it, you are missing out. It truly is the Holy Grail of 20 Question Tuesday interviews.

Pssst, USA Swimming, you frequently repeat the swimmers you interview for 20QT. Time for a new one with Mr. Tarwater!

Anyway, today we were pleasantly surprised to see that today’s 20 Question Tuesday interviewee was none other than Alex! (link) And we were wrong in hoping that he’d unleash his sense of humor during the interview. He’s keeping it under wraps and y’all are missing out. We’re sorry. Around here, we know how funny AVK can really be. It’s just a fact. Perhaps next time. Yea, next time!

SO FRESH AND SO CLEAN
The University of Michigan gave its entire athletic website a facelift! Check it out! It was long overdue and looks wonderful!