How I Learned to Love Mel Stewart

If, like me, you are a rabid consumer of all things Swimswam, you may have noticed that I found myself a byline there a couple days ago. I'm immensely proud to be involved with them for a simple reason: I believe that Swimswam is providing bar none the best swimming content in the world. I am getting a chance to help with that, while continuing the work I started here at the Swimbrief.

Like any great venture, Swimswam is the best because of the people behind. My affinity for Garrett McCaffrey is no secret- I consider him a friend who totally changed the course of my life. Braden Keith, the target of a little too much ribbing in this space, is so good at what he does that he puts all his rivals to shame. Davis Wuolle is very, very tall and Canadian.

There is one more vital founding piece of Swimswam, one about which I have a confession to make. Back in the early days of swimming on the internet, there was one person I didn't particularly care for. Mel Stewart was a former Olympian, and he seemingly loomed large over everything as soon as he got involved. I think I was jealous of Mel for quite some time. At one point I wanted to mock his "Gold Medal Mel" interviews with "Blue Ribbon Chris", wherein I would conduct interviews on the backdrop of the one age group meet I won back in '98. I'm glad I didn't because it might be awkward now.

In the coming months, I hope to make a weekly writing contribution to the site while continuing to team up with masters national champion Garrett McCaffrey on Open Turn. I will continue to write for this blog as long as Gus will let me.