21 August 2002 GOLD IN THE WATER: THE TRUE STORY OF ORDINARY MEN AND THEIR EXTRAORDINARY DREAM OF OLYMPIC GLORY by P. H. Mullen, St. Martin's Press/Thomas Dunne Books

This summer I went swimming

This summer I might have drowned

But I held my breath and I kicked my feet

And I moved myself around, I moved myself around..." --Louden Wainwright III

Yup. I'm feeling pretty cool right about now. Just back from a few weeks in the Sierras: burning out the soles of my hightops storming up the dusty trails, then kicking them off, splashing in, and doing half-mile-long laps back and forth across a bunch of pristine mountain lakes. That's me--Richie, the Piscean swimming fool. Not bad for someone with more than a touch of grey, who spends so much time lying around reading books.

But all I've got to do to bring myself down from this self-heralded pinnacle of coolness is to think about the truly amazing young, and not-so-young, athletes I recently encountered in GOLD IN THE WATER by P. H. Mullin. Primarily set in Santa Clara, California, this fascinating chronicle of Olympic hopefuls aiming for Sidney in 2000 is the best new book about swimming that I've read since WHALE TALK. And like the title says, this one is a true story.

Now it's one thing to contemplate finding yourself in the midst of some once-in-a-lifetime survival story. It's quite another thing to imagine purposefully getting up one miserably grey and rainy winter morning after another, jumping into a cold pool, and spending hours at the hands of a maniacal coach and a daily regimen that sounds little different in intensity than what you'd be enduring in those survival stories. Brrr! Some of the descriptions make me think they should have called this one COLD IN THE WATER.

Day after day, mile after mile, counting progress in hundreths of a second, these men and women subordinate all other aspects of their lives for the chance to make it to the Big Enchilada--the opportunity to represent their homeland in the Olympics. Now the title may also claim that these are ordinary men, but that may be stretching it. For instance, you'll encounter Kurt Grote, a guy who was simultaneously making his way through Stanford Medical School while maintaining his dreams of gold, another, Dod Wales, who was a second generation Olympic hopeful, and a woman, three-time former US Olympian, Dara Torres, who decided to try a comeback despite being nearly old enough to have given birth to some of her competitors.

"This summer I swam in the ocean

And I swam in a swimming pool

Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes

I'm a self-destructive fool, a self destructive fool..."

But these athletes are not machines. The author is a former competitive swimmer himself. His constant access to many of these characters reveals the day to day fluctuations in their physical and mental states as they push themselves to the brink--and sometimes, sadly, beyond it. And then there is their coach, Dick Jochums--a driven man who had gone from glory to exile and is now on the way back up. Like his swimmers he casts everything else aside. His hope is twofold: both motivating his top performers to world-record paces as they approach the tryouts and of gaining himself a coaching spot on the US Olympic squad.

Hundreds of thousands of kids around the US head to the Y or to the town pool each year and learn to swim. Despite the absence of the lucrative pro contracts that await the upcoming stars of "major" sports, many thousands of these young people continue training for years, becoming competitive swimmers with that dream of gold in the distance. Although published for adults, GOLD IN THE WATER is a fascinating read for teens. These tales of motivation, victory, and defeat will intrigue all sorts of young athletes, as well as old swimmers like me whose summer vacation workouts climax with racing that smartmouthed eleven-year-old upstart to the big rock in the middle of the lake.

Richie Partington

http://richiespicks.com

BudNotBuddy@aol.com