Reese must have been the coach. Any implication, intentional or not, that Reese was biased towards Texas swimmers is ridiculous but what else is new.
Kudos to Gary Hall for winning the 50 free and being a role model with his work on diabetes.
Bad on Gary Hall, the elder statesman, for signing an agreement and then breaking it.
Good for the establishment for holding him accountable.
Your middle initial is A, right? Now I think I know what it stands for.
You win. Gary Hall is the best. The coaches are biased and suck. Down with establishment. Down with the man. Power to the people. Anarchy rules. Aquageek for president.
I think I'll go have an intelligent discussion with my 5 year old.
This thread was started due to the fine that Hall recieved for not wearing the correct warm up. The issue of his behavior is actually irrelevent to the original post. Start a seperate topic that addresses his behavior, i.e. not making the relay team, not showing up for the relay as an alternate, being upset with coaches, etc...
Seems to me that Aquageek is one of the few remaining focused on the topic at hand when he discusses the warm up/uniform issue.
Interesting. I have never been a huge Hall fan and this seems like a good a time as any to jump in. Arm, if Aquageek wants to continue to be "off-thread," than the topic will continue to go in that direction. (BTW, you represent your country, they ask for certain things: compliance, attendance, performance, uniform; you do it or someone else would be PROUD to represent the country)
Hall relishes this "me against the world" thing that he and his manager are spinning. "In '96, I was too young; '00 I had diabetes, and this year I was too old" What the he-- is he talking about? We rooted against him in Sydney b/c he had diabetes?!? The "rivalry" with Lezak?!? Apparently, someone forgot to tell Jason that he and Dave Salo were supposed to jaw back at Camp Hall between the Trials and Olympics.
Gary is one of the best sprinters this country has had. (I still take Biondi). His problem is with expecting that based upon his history he is "deserving" of a spot on the 4x100. Issues: 1. He finished third at Trials. By our tradition, he is only guaranteed a spot in prelims. 2. He knows that what you do in Prelims determines who makes Finals; Reese did the rare thing of actually announcing a time they had to hit. It was Hall's, Walker's, and Woodward's responsibility to show what they had that day (not to fax in a resume with their efforts of four years ago). "Morning swimmer?!?" Come on. This is the Olympics and if you want a spot in Finals, you better freakin' earn it NOW. Michael Klim is a perfect example. A stud 4 years ago; he got older and injured. Without complaint, he swam prelims on the 4x200, busted his a-s and made the finals team and earned a silver. Good for him.
Gary's resume is great; but no matter what he has done in the past, he didn't show it at Trials or in prelims, the others did and we went with our strengths (at that moment). Crocker and Phelps don't factor because we don't know what Crocker was feeling the day before the final and he earned his spot at Trials. Phelps earned his in a regulation 50-m pool for 100 meters. Semantics don't count: I want him on it because he motors!
Hall skipping the meet, tripping off to some island smacks of a spoiled child having a tantrum and storming off to his secret little hiding place waiting for someone to come over and say that everything is okay, we are sorry, and ask him if he would come back and play with us. This is a TEAM and more importantly a COUNTRY and Gary walked away from us. He is disrespectful, selfish and boorish. It's a shame, because of what he HAS done in pool and for diabetes (I worked in the industry and know how serious this is and what they need to beat it), but I am not sure that the press he is drawing is something that LifeScan, Boeringer Mannheim and others are proud to have.
He is tired and needs to go now. Let's move on.
Oh, and nice melodramatic picture you paint, Geek. I would imagine that many reading are just rolling right now, you big "fight-the-man", "Overcome-Big Brother" thinker, you. Geez, slow down.
