Back in 2009, when Phelps was caught smoking, everyone and their mother knew about it. I remember hearing from people who knew nothing about the sport of swimming or Michael Phelps at all. They tried to tell me that he was a disgrace and they would never see him the same way again.
It’s a known fact that no one hears about swimming unless there’s a scandal or it’s an Olympic year. With football, though, we hear it all- the bad things and the good things. It’s so sad to me how more people knew about Phelps’ pot scandal than the birth of his newborn son.
It’s easy to shame people for mistakes when they’re in the public eye.
However, if someone in one of our lives did something similar, to many, it would be considered “okay.” How come Phelps isn’t allowed to make any mistakes? Just because olympians are the most talented people in the world doesn’t make them any less human than we are.
Similarly, there’s plenty of people who make drunken decisions like Ryan Lochte did after Rio, and yet, thousands insult him on a daily basis. I don’t think what he did was okay by any means, but how come swimmers get such a bad reputation?
I think the case that makes me the most upset is that the headline of every news article I’ve seen about Brock Turner started with the words “Swimmer, Brock Turner”. Can someone please explain why the fact that he’s a swimmer affects anything at all? His crime had absolutely nothing to do with the sport of swimming, and at this point, he doesn’t even deserve to have his name associated in the sport anymore.
The swimming community as a whole is so much better than usually portrayed. It’s rare when I meet a swimmer that I don’t like. Some of the best people I’ve ever met have been swimmers, because the values and attitudes the sport teaches us are unmatchable.
It’s so sad that thousands of people show up to cheer for football teams and so few attend swim meets when the football players couldn’t even do our warm up. But I guess it’s just something we live with- along with the 5 AM wake ups and permanent goggle marks.
Well said!!!
The media LOVES swimming and swimmers. Swimming was the marquee Olympic event since television coverage exploded. Even though the sport doesn’t enjoy the mass participation and huge following of several others, like football, swimming gets the lion’s share of media coverage during the Olympics.
Oh yeah. And it wasn’t what Lochte did when he was drunk. It’s what he did wrong when he was sober.
I think a better point to have made would have been not that football players hear the good and the bad, but that football players bad things such as domestic violence are so often glossed over. I do completely agree with the Brock Turner example, his name does not deserve the right to taint the name of our sport.
I heard a lot of bad stuff on football players over the years. There was one interesting story on a guy that could get his PHD in Math since everyone thinks football players are stupid. Brock Turner is kind of rare for swimming since its thought less of a bad sport more like Track and Field.
“It’s so sad to me how more people knew about Phelps’ pot scandal than the birth of his newborn son.” Do you have an polls or evidence to support this? I would think it would be the opposite. Poor Boomer has been paraded around like a show dog. Boomer is the most famous athlete’s child that I can think of and he’s not even 6 months old yet. While Phelps’s pot smoking was news at the time, I’m willing to bet that more people know who Boomer is than know about Phelps’s marijuana conviction.
What marijuana conviction? Just a photo I believe.
You are correct, which further proves my point–people barely remember what happened!
Rarely does an Athlete or Celebrity having a kid make headlines, otherwise some of these NFL and NBA players would be in the news all the time for fathering a child.
Boomer gets a rest. I hope Michael just teaches Boomer to swim and doesn’t except him to be world class. Mark Spitz did a great job on his now grown sons. They learn to swim and one did swimming and water polo in high school and some swimming in college. He didn’t push them. Gary Hall Sr did a great job too he just wanted his son to do something like either swimming or basketball for an activity not pushing him either to be world class.
“How come Phelps isn’t allowed to make any mistakes?”.
I would suggest you to watch the video of heavily drunk Phelps changing unpredictably lanes in the road tunnel at the speed well above 75. And being impressed by Michael’s driving abilities (nobody got hurt) ask yourself would you be willing to drive your car at the same time in this tunnel. I think the answer on this question will answer your question above about mistakes.
I think this post is smashing a lot of things together and not really making much sense. We heard about Phelps’s bong incident and DUI because he’s one of the most recognizable athletes on the planet. (If that was a random obscure national team member, it’d have maybe been a blip, if that.) We heard about Lochte’s gas station fiasco because it happened at the Olympics, which you already conceded was the one time people pay attention to swimmers. (Well, and he lied. That gave the story some legs.)
And even then, is Phelps still seen as some kind of pariah? He (and Usain Bolt) was the face of these Olympics, for the 3rd time in a row. His… Read more »
Yeah I agree that last part is so cringeworthy.
I’ll put it this way…if an NFL player can swim at all they are relatively better at swimming than probably any of us would be at NFL football haha
This is one of the best articles I have read.