Tyler the Truth Teller
by Casey Barrett
Tyler Clary calls out Phelps: Makes fair points, assures destruction…
Someone was bound to say it sooner or later. May as well have been the guy with the front row seat. Did you see what Tyler Clary had to say about Michael Phelps yesterday? It came out in the not-exactly-national Press-Enterprise, billed as the source of news and information in Inland Southern California… Here’s the column by Jim Alexander. It might be the source in the Valley, but safe to say in the swim universe, this site just expanded its reach. Because apparently Tyler Clary feels like playing with the piranha…
You can predict the outcry. It’s already coming in. How dare he! cries the young swim fan… He’s just jealous! cries the old swim mom… He’s the new Mike Cavic! says the swim site… Thanks for the extra ratings boost! smiles the TV network… Let’s face it, that 200 fly in London wasn’t much of a story, was it? Phelps already proved he can win that one with his goggles filled with water in Beijing. This event was a gimmie gold for the great one. But now there’s more, courtesy of the call-it-like-he-sees-it Mr. Clary.
(The story around the 200 fly in London was bound to go something like this: (Cue Gladiator soundtrack) This is the event where it all started, back in the year 2000, when a pubescent Michael Phelps stroked to a 5th place finish in Sydney… It was his one and only Olympic race that did not end on a podium… Actually, that’s rather fine, I can hear Dan Hicks voicing it, but that’s besides the point…)
Here’s what Tyler Clary had to say of his time training with Phelps at Michigan:
“I saw a real lack of preparation (from) him. Basically, he was a swimmer that didn’t want to be there. They can talk about all of these goals and plans and preparation they have. I saw it. I know. It’s different. And I saw somebody that has basically been asking to get beat for the longest time.”
Check the dates in question and you’ll see that this is even more inflammatory than it sounds. It’s royally fucking with the whole Michael Mythology. This isn’t the same old refrain of Phelps-didn’t-do-shit-after-Beijing. Phelps has been admitting as much ever since his party hearty Poker & More tour of ’08 and ’09. No, that’s old news. We get that, and more power to him for that debauched and well earned victory lap. But Phelps had already left Michigan by then. Clary is talking about before Beijing.
Tyler Clary got to Ann Arbor in the fall of 2007 – when Phelps was reputably in full 8 Gold or Bust focus mode. Except Clary claims that wasn’t really the case. He was a freshman back then, and not yet a superstar. He was a comer, no question; at the ’08 men’s NCAA’s, Clary won consols in the 400 IM and the 500 free. He swam plenty fast (3:44.1 / 4:16.8), but he wasn’t even in the big final in his individual events. He was a quiet freshman looking on at the king. And by his own eye-witness estimation, at the most pivotal legend making period of all, the king wasn’t putting in the work.
I’ll be honest – it’s not the first time I’ve heard this. It might be the first eye-witness account to be picked up by a reporter in the weeks before an Olympics, but it’s hardly the first eye-witness account to circulate through the swimming world. These stories are out there, being spread by former teammates without apology or secret. The media gospel of MP and the daily facts of training life appear to have a few discrepancies. Some fact-checking might be required.
But do those facts really matter? They don’t change the number of gold medals he’s won. They will never change the fact that what Phelps did in Beijing was the single greatest performance in Olympic history. Probably for all time. Hell, the charge that he didn’t put in the work of others might make it even more impressive!
Nonetheless, the grumbling has been out there for a long time, well before Beijing. There is no disputing the fact that Phelps did indeed put in the work when he was a kid, all the way through his teenage years. That much we can swear to a jury. But since Athens? Yes, Athens, not Beijing… Those many years since Greece appear to be up for dispute.
Of course, this raises the question of the verboten T-word. Talent, that cruel bitch we wish we could discount, wish we could minimize and prove how it’s all really fair in the end. It’s not. It’s no more fair than a six foot nothing no-ups gym rat willing to do whatever it takes to play forward for the Miami Heat. Sorry, kid, Lebron doesn’t need to work as hard as you either, whatever he says about his off season routine.
Seeing Tyler Clary’s comments, I found myself nodding in solidarity. I used to be you, young Tyler. A masochistic give-me-anything practice fiend whose best events were also the 200 fly and 400 IM. And like you, I used to be bitter as hell at those I deemed to have more talent and a lesser work ethic. (Nice guy though he was, I’ll still probably never forgive former teammate Lars Frolander at SMU – an NCAA Swimmer of the Year and eventual Olympic champion in the 100 fly in Sydney. Never saw the guy swim more than 25 yards straight of butterfly; never saw him make more than four workouts a week. Alas…)
Tyler, here’s some free advice from beyond the competitive grave: You will someday realize how foolish you sound with all that talk about being the “blue collar worker” and not the talented one. Tyler, you’re more gifted than I ever was, more talented than all but a tiny few swimmers who ever lived. That is true regardless of how hard you might work. You’re going to wind up on an Olympic podium in a few weeks. Your own talents are absolutely other worldly. I can assure you that countless others out there are working just as hard as you are, and they will never ever sniff an Olympic berth.
Ah, screw all that retired perspective, I’m with you. Watching a once-in-a-century talent day in and day out like that, a guy who just gets the water more than any human ever has… That will get to you. It sucks.
But when you step on the blocks for the 200 fly in London, you can’t do a damn thing about it.
I dunno, I’m skeptical. If you’re going for 8 golds and you’re that broken down, you’re going to get beat in practice sometimes. I’ll bet Lochte doesn’t win every set in practice every day, either. And even if that’s not it, there’s something to be said for the mental and physical benefits of pacing yourself if you know you’re going to be in it over the long haul anyway; Frolander is still swimming well into his 30′s, even if it’s mostly by getting by on the “T” word by now.
But anyway, if it’s true that Phelps made all those records and golds without trying 100%, then he’s even more amazing than we already thought. He’s not asking to get beat, he’s been trying to hang on for a decade at the highest level of swimming any swimmer has ever hit in history. Nobody should be more bitter than Lochte or Lazlo Czeh, but they’ve been nothing but gracious in defeat, and in Lochte’s case, a couple victories now. Clary needs to see the team shrink, stat, or he risks his own peformance in London, as well as interfering with team morale!
I was awaiting your response, and I find your take on it very similar to my own. Clary has made a solid point, and one that I have to juggle every day as a college coach.
This year we lost a talented freshman; a workhorse whose ego came in front of the team. I do look at talent vs. work, and although she put in the work, she was still our #2 butterflyer. Unfortunately, she had whittled the trust of the team down to the point that she became a liability…coming to the coaches and making up fictious stories about other teammates.
I have heard the stories about Phelps as well. I understand Clary’s point in calling him out. I witnessed similar behavior as an athlete on a team as well. What is interesting to me, is what happens at the big show, and how each person handles the results. That is the TRUE test of character.
Whether or not Clary is right, a few weeks before London isn’t the time to say it. Cavic was different – Swimming for another country. To buck the party line a few weeks before The Party is going to do nothing but create uncomfortable discord. I’ve got to imagine that Clary is having a few talks with the brass about a unified front and being told not to grind his axe to take more chops at the greatest Olympian in history (whether or not the claims are true).
As for Frolander, well, I swam with both of you and yes, Casey, you were a freakishly hard-worker. The term “Old School” is well worn but also well suited for your exploits in practice. And Lars…from what I remember (which is often little), he wasn’t there all the time and he barely had to take a stroke of butterfly to be great, but I do recall that he was one of the most purposeful swimmes I’ve ever seen. As a coach, though, if I had to take my pick, I’d put 5 of you in my practice over 10 Lars’s. You would be a hell of a lot more fun to work with!
Simply put… “work” is a relative concept. “Working” certain swimmers past their point of productivity is not necessarily in the best interest of many athletes. What Tyler views as work, is probably what he needs to do to overcome whatever inefficiencies there are in his strokes. It’s painfully obvious that whatever “work” Michael put in prior to Beijing, was EXACTLY the amount of work he needed to put in. I’m afraid this will be viewed poorly by the general public, and agreed on the thought that “teammates” shouldn’t be acting like this prior to the Olympics.
WM I’m glad you brought up the overworked issue because that reminded me that I wanted to mention it as well, although I think Glenn alluded to this as well. Coughlin, who is not one to make excuses, brought up overwork as a possible factor for her relatively weak showing at Trials, saying she worked harder than usual this year to make up for lost time. Grevers also brought it up as a factor in his poor performances in 2010. Different swimmers have different thresholds for overwork, so it’s possible that what Clary perceived as phelps sandbagging could rather be a superior intuitive or learned sense of how far to push his body at any given time for optimal performance. Maybe Clary should take a lesson from Coughlin and Grevers as well, if he feels that he’s getting diminishing returns for his hard work. Though his times were pretty good. He should just enjoy London, even though he has little to no chance of beating Phelps.
He can stop listening to Dubstep. That would be a start.
Interesting enough, Casey, a while ago you wrote a story how talent doesn’t matter all that much and if you really want to be a champion, hard work is inevitable. Funny how your view has radically changed since then and now suddenly you’re feeling Clary’s pain.
Tyler Clary may be a good swimmer, but he’s made a fool of himself out of the pool. What Phelps does to prepare himself is IRRELEVANT – barring taking illegal substances. The only thing that matters are results. Phelps has 14 Olympic gold medals, so he obviously knows very well what he needs to do to deliver. If he can play poker, play video games, break his hand or whatever and still win 8 golds in Beijing, more power to him. He certainly won’t ask Clary for approval. If Clary thinks that hard work is all that counts and he’s outraged that someone can work less and still have amazing results…well, good morning to you Mr. Clary. Wake up and smell the coffee. People aren’t born equal. Know yourself and do what works for you.
I was looking forward to someone calling me out on that! Yes, on the surface, that past column (“The Myth of Michael’s Talent”) would seem to contradict what I wrote this time, but I really don’t think my view has changed at all. The point of that previous piece was to shine a light on all the incredible work that Phelps did as a kid and a teenager – the work that laid the foundation for everything else… That will never change. However, it seems clear that this work ethic significantly dried up a whole lot sooner than many presume… As for his preparation being “irrelevant”, I wouldn’t go that far, but clearly results are the only final truth in this, and every, sport.
This is the classic dichotomy in swimming…or any endurance sport for that matter. Talent vs work. Clary just sounded bitter in his interview with a complete lack of perspective. He’s defining “preparation” in his own terms without any thought as to what preparation means to Phelps. To claim Phelps showed a “lack of preparation” going into Bejing is frankly a bit juvenile and simplistic. His attitude is corrosive and counterproductive in an environment where nothing matters more than team building going into London. This attitude was rampant at Cal in my first 3 years there, completely fragmented the team, resulted in our worst two NCAA finishes in Nort’s tenure as head coach, and ended in a coach being fired. Results are the ultimate equalizer, and preparation can only really be questioned when goals are not attained. The most successful athletes have an uncanny understanding of their bodies and what it takes to prepare themselves for competition. Here’s a concept Tyler…”proper preparation”…and another…”overtraining”! Yardage does not equal preparation…no one embodied this more than Gary Hall Jr. It is easy to discount his success as pure talent, but the misconception is that this talent was entirely physical. Gary knew, probably better than any of his competitors, what he needed to do to win. Preparation is a relative thing…different strokes for different folks…literally. Gary didn’t need to put in the hours and the yards to be prepared for his success. Frankly, had he gone toe to toe, yard for yard with someone like Bart Kizierowski, he would have been a broken down mess and thus ill-prepared. I sincerely hope Tony Ervin schools this kid on losing the chip on his shoulder, Natalie or Lezak educate him on what it means to be a teammate with a little perspective, and the coaches get his dealings with the press in check. Whether he intended to or not, he has just opened a can of worms that will be a central storyline throughout the swimming portion of the Olympics. Good luck in the 2 fly dude…the world will be watching more closely than ever, and if you lose you’ll catch a lot of shit for it even if victory is conceded to the greatest swimmer and 200 flyer ever.
Well after reading all the comments, I do not think its necessary to stress what Tyler said wrong since that is obvious. I have swam at the highest level of swimming possible and after seeing and training with more than 15 olympic medal winners and having gone to olympics myself I feel the most unknown territory in swimming is how much work do you actualize need to do and what is actually right for you in comparison to others.My own belief at the end of my career was that best swimmers know themselves better than good or great swimmers and they sometimes do more by doing less even though they often do it unconsciously. Unfortunately there is way to little courage in coaches to take that path and is also highly risky.