Closing Gender Gap in The Pool
Boys Outnumbered, But Phelps May Help

By Amy Shipley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 8, 2008; E01

Michael Phelps intends to transform swimming as he returns to the North Baltimore Aquatic Club this fall. He wants to bring more financial opportunities, exposure and professionalism to the sport that has given him 14 Olympic gold medals.

But many U.S. swimming coaches would be satisfied if his superstardom and popularity bring something more basic to pools across the country: boys.

Casual fans who know little about the sport beyond what they saw during the Summer Games in Beijing, when the Adonis-like Phelps and his chiseled U.S. teammates became the undisputed rock stars of the Olympics, might be surprised to learn that American swimming programs have for years struggled to attract male athletes.

Over the last decade, female swimmers have outnumbered males by approximately three to two, although the number of males has ticked upward in recent years, according to USA Swimming, the sport's governing body. People in the sport, who attribute the disparity to a variety of factors including a perception of swimming as more artistic than hard-nosed, are counting on Phelps and the spoils of the sport's prime-time spot in the Olympics to increase interest among young men.

"The problem is a macho thing," said Tom Dolan, a retired three-time Olympic medalist from Arlington. "Kids want to play football and they want to play baseball because those are 'cool' sports. In swimming, you wear a skimpy suit. That's not cool."

Many who have long wondered how the sport could conquer its image issues believe the Olympics set the stage for a potentially monumental breakthrough. NBC's decision to showcase the Olympic swimming events live in prime time, along with Phelps's record-breaking eight gold medals and his post-Olympic tour through the pop-culture media, including an appearance on "Saturday Night Live," added a dose of hipness to a sport whose participants wear bathing caps instead of helmets, goggles instead of eye black and tiny briefs instead of numbered uniforms.

Even that aspect -- the tiny suits -- has changed, and swimming aficionados who rail about the damage high-tech suits have done to the record books can't help but admit that male athletes look much cooler in technically advanced, long-length suits than skimpy Speedo briefs.

Phelps's longtime coach Bob Bowman deplores the idea of young, developing swimmers wearing the speed suits, but he happily encourages boys to wear a modified version -- tight-fitting, thigh-length shorts known as jammers -- simply because they discourage self-consciousness.

Bowman, Dolan and others blame the traditional tiny briefs for nothing short of driving young boys out of the sport.

"I honestly think they were a barrier for getting boys into the sport on the entry level," Bowman said.

"Jammers have really helped boys with self-esteem and body issues," four-time Olympic medal winner Neil Walker said.

U.S. coaches and officials became deeply troubled shortly before the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, when USA Swimming's percentage of male members dropped to an all-time low of 37.5 percent from a high of nearly 45 percent in the mid-1980s, according to Pat Hogan, USA Swimming's club development director.

Dealing with the problem has been far more difficult than identifying it. USA Swimming recently hired a youth marketing company in Vermont to provide advice on appealing to male athletes. Meanwhile, during mandatory coaching seminars throughout the last decade, Hogan said, coaches have been educated on the differences in the ways girls and boys learn, in the hope of ensuring that young, energetic boys aren't put off by programs that are too structured or repetitive.

Coaches also have been urged to allow boys time away from swim practice to play other sports if they wish.

"Those are the kinds of things we've encouraged," Hogan said. "We've seen a slow but steady increase since 2000."

Indeed, the number of boys has grown almost every year since by an average of slightly less than half a percent. As of this September, the percentage of male participants reached a 10-year peak of 41.8. This year, 2,912 males have joined USA Swimming, compared with 2,704 females.

But the gap still remains. Walker said girls outnumber boys by about three to one in a pair of youth classes he teaches for Longhorn Aquatics in Austin. Shortly before the Olympics, he said, one of his 10-year-old students approached him looking upset: "He told me, 'You need to talk to a kid at school; he said swimming isn't a sport.' "

Added Walker ruefully, "I heard that growing up."

There is also the matter of opportunity: Universities across the country have eliminated more than six dozen men's swimming programs in the last two decades, according to Phil Whitten, the director of the College Swimming Coaches Association of America. Most schools made the cuts to adhere to Title IX, the federal law that guarantees equal participation opportunities for male and female students. The perception that there are few opportunities for college scholarships could deter talented male athletes, some swimming experts say.

The North Baltimore Aquatic Club -- which Phelps is returning to this fall after four years at Michigan -- has been largely immune to the problem since Phelps began to emerge internationally shortly after the 2000 Summer Games. His gradual but startling rise, officials say, immediately jolted interest in the Baltimore-Washington region, an area already known for quality swim programs and huge participation. Hogan said the area is the sixth largest in terms of membership in the country.

Even so, Bowman and North Baltimore Aquatic Club founder Murray Stephens recalled a time when Phelps swam largely by himself during youth swim sessions because there were virtually no other boys in his age group.

"Ten years ago with the younger kids, we'd have 16 or 20 girls and only three boys," Bowman said. "It's a difficult environment when you have those ratios."

Swimming officials expect to see a major jump in overall participation this year. The September figures already show a rise of 2.2 percent. Given the 4.9 percent jump after the 2000 Summer Games and 7.2 leap after the 2004 Olympics, officials and coaches say they hope for double-digit growth in 2009.

And they hope a significantly narrowed gap between male and female athletes goes with it.

"Now, arguably, our most significant heroes are male swimmers," Hogan said. "Coming out of Beijing, if a boy wants to be a swimmer, I think it's a much more cool thing to do."