Local swimming teams enjoy impact from Phelps' success

Of the times I thought I might end up talking about swimming with a stranger, Friday's St. Charles North football game at McHenry would have been somewhere near the bottom of the list.

Yet there I was, after getting a forgotten pair of binoculars from my car, when I started talking with a McHenry County Sheriff's Department officer.

In fairness, the discussion began with the size of today's sophomore football players - who really are huge. And I mentioned that my son, age 11, stands 5 feet and has size 10 feet - a half-size smaller than mine.

And that was it - foot size. My new friend mentioned Michael Phelps' size 14 feet and how that helped make him a great swimmer. Without missing a beat, I mentioned that it's the whole package. Phelps has broad shoulders, a narrow waist, long legs and big feet. If you were sculpting a perfect swimmer from clay - you'd have a 6-4 tall Michael Phelps statue to put in your kiln.

If you're able to have a serious swimming discussion on a football Friday in McHenry, think what it's like on swim decks around the state. Sure enough, at Rosary's season-opener with the Oswego co-op and West Aurora, it was very easy to talk about the Baltimore Bullet and his impact on his sport.

Certainly swimmers were glued to their sets to see Phelps' successful quest for eight gold medals in one Olympics. Rosary coach Bill Schalz said he told his swimmers they were making a huge mistake if they didn't watch, and not just to see who won and lost. The underwater photography was a coach's dream.

"Our team is bigger," Schalz said. "West Aurora's team is bigger. Oswego's got more kids. But it's the club teams too. We went from 200 to 300 with the (Academy) Bullets. All the clubs in the area have gotten larger. Lyons had 80 kids age 8-and-under show up."

The thing about the so-called "Michael Phelps Effect" is that there's nothing necessarily new about it. There was also a Michael Phelps Effect in 2004 - which only got bigger locally when Phelps swam at St. Charles East's Norris Center pool.

"At the '96 Olympics in Atlanta, we had home court, and we swept the relays," West Aurora coach Joe Neukirch said. "It was perfect and even then, we got a boost from it. But with Phelps winning eight gold medals, it is even bigger."

All swimmers have idols. Phelps lists Pablo Morales - a star on the 1984 and 1992 Olympic teams - as his favorite swimmer growing up. Some of today's female swimmers remember Janet Evans. Today's female swimmers may idolize Natalie Coughlin - breastrokers will want to win medals like Rebecca Soni.

The Phelps Effect extends beyond just one athlete. And to a degree, the impact extends beyond American swimmers. Fans in the southeastern portion of the U.S. certainly remember Zimbabwean golden girl Kirsty Coventry, who won NCAA titles for Auburn.

"A lot of our kids watch the NCAAs," Schalz said. "They get familiar with the kids from abroad who swim here. I think, mostly, though, that you're cheering for the American flag."

And the impact of this year's superb Olympic performances has been felt in the area. West Aurora has nearly double the number of swimmers - more than 30 - on its roster this fall. Many are new to the sport or new to high school swimming. But Neukirch said most bring an enthusiasm for swimming that is at least partly born from watching the Olympics.

"The Olympics are a huge boost," Neukirch said. "These newcomers have seen that and they see the joy and the rewards from working that hard. It's such a rewarding sport. Many of these newcomers, from 5 years old to teenagers - we're going to see them adding more and more to the sport."

Every sport works with a certain "pyramid." The more youngsters who are swimming, the more chances elite athletes will be found because there is more chance that the potentially-elite athlete has chosen swimming rather than another sport.

"The more that we have in the sport, the more we're going to see these kinds of things happen more and more," Neukirch said. "We'll have a Mary Descenza pop up or a Jason Lezak come around. It could happen right here in the State of Illinois."

While Rosary great Descenza did not qualify for this Olympic Games, there were Illinois swimmers in the pool in Beijing. Christine Magnuson, who won a pair of silver medals, was the 2002 and 2003 IHSA 100-yard freestyle champion while swimming for Andrew. Matt Grevers, who as a senior led Lake Forest to the 2003 state title and was one of the state's best ever, got a pair of gold medals and a silver medal in Beijing.

Phelps has said he intends to swim in the London Olympics in 2012. His participation in 2016, even if Chicago's bid succeeds, is unlikely.

"We talk at USA Swimming all time about how to keep the ball in the air," Schalz said. He is on that organization's board of directors.

"NBC is going to show our World Championship qualifiers live. That meet is in Rome and they're going to show that too. We're going to get unbelievable press coverage."

These are heady days indeed for swimming in this country, and in Illinois as well. Illinois has been one of the fastest states in the nation for prep swimming and the athletes competing for state titles in November in Evanston are sure to push the bubble just that little bit farther.

He won't be there, but Phelps would certainly be pleased. He has, along with all his compatriots, helped make this possible.