professional vs. amateur swimming.

Having been a professional swimmer for four years -- though not at the upper tier -- I can say that the answer is definitely not. Swimmers are superstars in the sport of swimming. Never, never, never, never has a swimmer transcended the sport to the real world. Mark Spitz, maybe. Janet Evans, sort of. Michael Phelps, to some degree. Amanda Beard has taken this year to capitalize on her marketing fame. But outside the Speedo ads, I haven't seen her anywhere else. If anyone would showcase themselves as a "diva," I would think Amanda would be it. But swimmers fight an uphill battle. We're not on TV every week like the Big Three. The magazines don't usually advertise swimmers. Jenny Thompson's Got Milk? ad was great, but only came out for a breif period. I think I saw Pete Sampras' ad long after his retirement. Even Bart Simpson's milk ad had more visibility. Not to say it can't happen, but this isn't the sport for those looking to be rolling in the bling-bling.

Jeff is right. It's nice for people to be amatuers but the time always comes for them to move on and make room for new talent.

I think Katie wanted to get the endoresements, so she could stayed on the same team instead of going to another state for college. Anyway, she isn't expecting to make a million dollars a year for ten years. As for Amanda she is a successful model for many different mags-sports illustatated being one of them. She doesn't make as much as the William sisters or Michelle Kwan-the figure skater but she doesn't do that bad. Actually,Rowdy Gaines, Donna Devonna, and Summer Sanders and in the past John Nabers got announcing jobs because of their swimming. Sanders is still very active as announcer for different sports and had her own show-Olympic Gold last year. Gaines is use to promote products ilike Swimmers ear and some other products and Donna Devonna did annnoucing for different sports for almost 4 decades. Janet Evans does public speaking and gets a pretty good salary. None are making millions but probably make 250,000 to around 500,000, not bad salaries.

Originally posted by craiglll@yahoo.com I don't exactly understand your last statement. If you are saying that swimming pros aren't going to effect the growht of hte sport, you are correct. Few swimmers will ever make enough money or prestige to truly increase tose young peole who go into swimming. If anything, increased purses and swimming pros will probably only help to maintain the status quo in th e US. Mr. Smith can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think his point was that Single A baseball players are considered pro, even though they may barely get food per diem money. (OT, I almost typed perdiem, which would be something else altogether.) The growth part is just addressing that the money isn't enough to make someone decide to give up a potential basketball career to be a pro swimmer.

Originally posted by TheGoodSmith Amusing to see that someone on this forum thinks that going pro in swimming means they are making substantial amounts of money and success to the point that they are affecting growth in the sport in the younger age groups. Wrong. Even the most successful swimmers don't get a fraction of the dough or noteriety they deserve compared to the Big 3. It's a rounding error in comparison. If they ever did.... it would certainly help filter the message downward and across sports for recruiting purposes. John Smith What I found amusing is your constant belittling of our sport saying its dying because there aren't enough sponsors of our gold plated membership rolls, we aren't setting world records everyday, and the endless other ways you try to say its a dead or dying sport. Yet, you then get all goo goo over a swimmer going pro. As to this deserving thing. No one deserves anything in life. You work for what you get and the market determines your financial value. Maybe it's the other Smith who has this attitude, I can't keep your two straight.

I believe news of the death of swimming is premature. Every program around here is busting at the seams. Charlotte may not be indicative of the nation, however. USA Swimming claims it went over the 200K member mark in 1992 and as of this year has 270K members, an increase of 35%. I can't find a figure of an extreme decrese in the past 5-6 years as you have stated but I guess it is quite possible. But, apparently we have 35% more competitive swimmers registered with USA Swimming now than we had back in 1992.

why do something for free when she can get paid for it? Assuming she gets an education eventually, go ahead and make some money while you can.

Originally posted by Ken Classen Anyway the NCAA/University monopoly makes billions off the Football and Basketball and quite frankly the colleges our getting off cheap by just paying the athlete just a scholarship You have to realize that there are only a handful of sports at a handful of schools that actually make any money for the school. The NCAA, for all of its detractors, does provide funds back to the schools and does serve as a central administrative source for college athletics. You could call their packaging of the bowl games, the NCAA bball tournet, college world series, etc a stroke of brilliance when you consider how much those endeavors have brought back to the universities. On the other hand, I do realize the NCAA has some big issues, recently highlighted by their idiotic attempt to make schools like FSU change their team mascot/name.

And Illinois.

So with Katie going pro, should the scholarship she otherwise would have had go to a foreign athlete or only to a U.S. citizen? (ooops, flashback . . . sorry). carl