Sometimes science bursts its own bubble...

[Scott Stevenson]

Yeah she swam competitively middle school through the first 4 years of college. Once she graduated and started in law school she focused pretty much on that exclusively. She did hang with the post collegiate swim crowd though and has some interesting stories about some of today's Olympic swimmers. This almost always comes up whenever we talk of the genetic elite versus the just "good" or "average". That you could tell that Michael Phelps was going to be a gold medalist when he was 20. He was already at the point so far beyond everyone else.

Not a large regret, but a small one is that we did not know each other back then and I wish I could have seen her compete at her peak I've seen her swim and she's good, but its different

Yes, I've been around some pretty good swimmers, too and it's kind of like best of the best are almost magical. That would have been pretty cool to have seen her swim...

There was a guy I swam with on my H.S. team (Dan) who was just born to swim, but really didn't care to compete or train. His strokes were flawless and his body type just ideal...

In the summers, he's swim on the club swim team in the 15-18yr old division, just to help them get points. He never trained with the team. Usually it would just be during the in town meets. He had other things going on, it was kind of a whenever kind of thing.

We were swimming our cross-town rivals who had several AAU swimmers, who trained 4+ hr / day plus dry land work, weights, etc. Their best (Sherwin) ended up swimming for U. Michigan on a full ride and was swimming his 100m butterfly (and maybe backstroke, too) under the times needed to quality for the Olympic trials. He was a machine.

Dan had been playing golf and went out on the links before the meet started. At the turn, someone tells the coach he's at the club so she asked him if he could compete. He didn't even have any trunks.

Dan literally laid his clubs down, slipped into some trunks (He'd do this sometime even in shorts style trunks) and goes to stand at the starting blocks to race Sherwin in the 50 yard butterfly. He's got a fresh farmer's burn on his arms and no goggles and managed a few arms circles to warm up . He'd probably not swum a lap since the last time he raced like this.

Dan beats Sherwin that day. It was just absolutely ridiculous, as if he would transform into a merman when he hit the water.... They might have convinced him to stick around, have a coke and hot dog and compete in a relay or something, before finishing up the rest if his golf for the day.



-S