Be sure to "friend" The Swim Brief

The Swim Brief:  Uh...  "making a big splash?"  "splashing onto the scene?"  awww, forget it.  We just want our mascot to be a fat guy in a brief. 

Some of you might have noticed that I recently started posting at The Swim Brief.  It is (so far) a collaboration with Chris DeSantis and Mike Gustafson, and I am excited to be a part of it.  I am looking forward to being part of a team that will be able to bring regular content on all things swimming.  I am mostly excited about the prospect of getting a rocking string of comments going on every topic out there.  Please help us to get people talking.  That is why we take the time to write this stuff.  We want to interact with you!

I plan to continue to post things here.  Some of the things I post here might not be on The Swim Brief, and other things might... so please keep checking in here and definitely tune in there. When you visit The Swim Brief, you will see that we already have it set up for you to follow us through Google and by "liking" us on facebook.  Please spread the word by suggesting your friends "like" us, and support us in our new venture into the world of swim blogging.

See ya there!

Now that's an athlete...

When I was a kid, I kind of thought it was silly that Daredevil and some of the other superheroes did so many gymnastics moves when they were fighting ninja's and stuff, but I learned to accept it.  There was enough cool stuff that I could write it off as really fancy martial arts.  Plus, Elektra was so hot that all the posing added something for my junior high maturity level brain to process on a much deeper level with real complexity.  


Then, when I rented the movie Gymkata, it kind of ruined all that for me.

The skill of gymnastics, the kill of karate, and the dorkiness of a mulleted hero with no acting skills and a hilariously low production budget!

Never heard of Gymkata?  Cracked magazine thinks it is the funniest movie of the 80's. If they can't convince you, maybe the pommel horse fight scene can:





Really kids.  This is the kind of thing we had to watch back in the day.  There wasn't much else out there. No wonder my generation actually played outside instead of parking in front of a screen.  Right?


After watching that, I have to wonder why our military budget does not include equipping our soldiers with gymnastics equipment.  If I had the video chops and the time to waste, I would mash up some C-Span footage, Onion-style, to have a senator making a passionate plea for the funding of it with the use of this vid up on a big screen.  Come on, you know that would be hilarious.  Especially if I could find video of a politician speaking to congress with a kick-ass mullet.


Anyway, in my eyes, gymnastics have been redeemed by a Polish gymnast who has become an internet sensation.  You can't watch this without thinking it is kind of super-heroesque:





Thank you Jozsef Wadecki, for your inspiration.  I will be signing my children up for gymastics this week.  That is freekin' awesome.

The John R. Wooden Award

Wow. My uncle Mark just posted on Facebook that he is presenting the women's John R. Wooden Award to Maya Moore tonight. They are also having a tribute to Mark's dad, Duke Llewellyn. 

I visited him once in LA and I remember him telling me that Coach Wooden had just had dinner at their house a few days prior. Apparently he grew up hanging around the LA Athletic Club and often saw some big named swimmers like Gary Hall around too. 

What a cool time and place that must have been and what a great honor to be presenting that award!

NCAA and NASCAR... two great money makers that go great together.

Way back when the Arizona State swimming and wrestling programs were cut a couple of years ago, I posted one of my very first blogs at SwimNetwork.  I wish I could find a link to it because I do not have it saved anywhere.  (I asked the SwimNetwork editor to help me track it down but he said it was probably lost in the transition away from WMG.)  In it, I cut and pasted a whole bunch of comments from one of the articles at AZCentral where people were bashing non-revenue sports and pretty much confirming that there are a whole bunch of morons out there who think college sports should only consist of football, baseball and men's basketball...  the ones that supposedly "make money."  One guy even told us swimmers to go to the local pool and do belly flops without expecting a free government handout if we want to swim so badly.  

In that blog post I made a prediction:  that in 10 years the NCAA would stop pretending they care about athletic/academic ideals and allow non-revenue sports to die, they would trade traditional wrestling for WWE-style action, and that the big conferences would move on to even bigger revenue sports like NASCAR.

So, you have to imagine the terror I felt when I saw a picture of the car Michael Waltrip is racing next weekend: 

Granted, this car was designed to celebrate his alma mater's football national championship last year, but still... does no one else fear that this could be the beginning of a really dangerous relationship?

My awesome new hat!

This Viking helmet was a surprise gift from one of my former swimmers, Katie Kearbey. How cool is that?! The beard is removable. It fits perfectly. I couldn't have asked for a better surprise. Aaah, the perks of being a blogger.

I have been thinking about changing our summer league mascot to Vikings just so I will have an excuse to wear it more often!

Thanks Katie!!