Nicknames for Phelps still phoundering

Kevin Cowherd

September 13, 2004

AGUILTY CONSCIENCE is a terrible burden to carry, and mine was starting to feel like a pair of cinderblocks tied around my waist.

Maybe you were too hard on the readers, a little voice kept saying.

You write a column lamenting the fact that Michael Phelps doesn't have a cool nickname. You invite the readers to send in their suggestions. Then you rip them for being lame!

Is that any way to treat people?

Kevin Cowherd E-mail | Recent columns

Boy, was I feeling low.

So when Baltimore's young Olympic hero made a triumphant return home this past weekend, I vowed to track him down.

I promised myself I wouldn't rest until I could stand face-to-face with the winner of six gold medals at the Athens Games and get his reaction to some of the nicknames sent in by Sun readers last week.

And if young Mr. Phelps liked any of the nicknames, I would throw myself on the ground -- figuratively speaking, of course -- and beg the forgiveness of my readers.

Not only that, but, as a further apology, I would then take every reader out to dinner.

And we're not talking Burger King here. No, we're talking Prime Rib, Tio Pepe's, Oregon Grille, wherever the reader wanted to go. Because that's always been the motto of this space: When I screw up, you go first class.

OK, fine.

So the other day, I finally catch up with the great Michael Phelps at the Loyola College pool, where he's putting on some kind of swimming clinic for schoolkids in conjunction with this Disney "Swim With the Stars" tour he's doing with fellow gold medalists Lenny Krayzelburg and Ian Crocker.

The place is crawling with media, but I manage to get him alone -- well, if you don't count the 60 other TV, radio, print and Web reporters crammed in around us.

Briefly, I fill him in: Look, you need a cool nickname like that Ian Thorpe guy from Australia, the "Thorpedo." We asked the Sun's readers for suggestions, more than 400 submissions rolled in, they came from as far away as Malaysia and the Philippines, blah, blah, blah.

"The top vote-getter was Phish," I said to him. "Spelled with a ph."

Nothing.

Silence.

The kind of silence you hear after the doctor says: "There's a spot on the X-ray that's troubling ..."

Beads of sweat start forming on my forehead.

"The, um, second top vote-getter was Phlash," I continue. "Also with a ph."

E-mail

Single page

Reprint

Nicknames for Phelps still phoundering

Kevin Cowherd

Other columnists

Features

Featured Video Advertisers


Renaissance Festival Share photos of the knights, ladies and jesters. More: Pets \| Family reunions \| Weddings Reader videos \| Talk forums \| Trivia quizzes

Nicknames for Phelps still phoundering

Kevin Cowherd

Related links

Poll: Is Phelps the greatest Olympian ever?

Related topic galleries: Michael Phelps

Other columnists

Features

Featured Video Advertisers

Popular stories