Longtime Sidekick Propels Swimmer

Phelps is entered in six of the 11 events at the trials: the 400- and 200-meter individual medleys, and the 200-meter butterfly, in which he holds world records; the 200-meter freestyle, in which he holds the American record; and the 100-meter butterfly and 200-meter backstroke, in which he is the world's second-best.

The three Olympic relay events, the 400 medley, 400 freestyle and 800 freestyle, in which Phelps could compete in Athens, are not on the trials program.

In the end, Bowman laughs: "If Michael doesn't do well, it'll be my fault. If he does well it'll be because he's a great athlete. And that's fine. That's how it always is."

Bowman, who loves the tactical aspects of the sport, had to carefully weigh his swimmer's prodigious strength and stamina against the grueling pace of competing in preliminaries, semifinals and finals in multiple events. He could still scratch Phelps from any event at the last minute.

The eight-day trials start Wednesday in Long Beach, Calif., and on one night, July 12, Phelps could be called on to swim three events in a single 2 1/2-hour session.

But he has done that before, and he has infinite trust in Bowman's calculations.

Drawn to Coaching

Their lives have been intertwined for eight years, an unusually long affiliation in swimming. It is one that has changed as Phelps has grown, and is likely to change more after the Olympics. Phelps, who lives with his mother near Towson, could then be world famous; Bowman starts a new coaching job at the University of Michigan on Sept. 1.

Bowman began teaching Phelps at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club when Phelps was a skinny 11-year-old who was being raised by his mother after she and her husband divorced.

An intense, cerebral and ambitious man who is unmarried and fiercely dedicated to his work, Bowman had been a bit of a vagabond -- he still loves staying in hotels -- having served in numerous coaching jobs across the country before landing in Baltimore in 1996.

A native of tiny Clover, S.C., where his mother's family once raised cotton, and where football and golf rule, Bowman instead found his calling first in classical music composition, which he studied in college, and then swimming. He preferred the latter, he says, because the people were nicer.

Just under 6 feet tall, with Ben Franklin-style glasses and short, light-colored hair that is starting to gray, Bowman says his southern accent only emerges when he is talking to his mother on the phone. He can quote Winston Churchill, admires the music of the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, and is easily bored.

Bowman swam competitively in college, and has said he was more diligent than even Phelps. "I tried harder than Michael Phelps ever did in training, I guarantee you," he says. "I was more conscientious, more focused, gave up more." But "I sucked," he says, and as a student of child psychology he found himself drawn to coaching.

And although he can be stern, critical and sarcastic with Phelps and his other swimmers -- a taskmaster swinging a digital stopwatch on a black lanyard -- Bowman has deep affection, and sympathy, for the young man he calls "Big Dog."

Though he is ambivalent about the notion that he is a father figure, his role in Phelps's adolescence has been pivotal. Phelps says that aside from his mother, Bowman knows him better than anyone, and credits the coach with making him the swimmer he is.

"Once I moved to his level when I was 11," the swimmer says, "he sort of took my stroke and redid it all and sort of took it from ground one and built it up and it is what it is."