CAREER MOVE : Matt Biondi Resumes Competitive Swimming--and a Rivalry--to Give His Sport a Boost

When Matt Biondi decided last month, while on tour in Berlin with the U.S. water polo team, that he wasn’t quite as enthralled with the sport as he once was and that he was ready to return to competitive swimming, no one was happier to hear the news than Tom Jager, his once and future nemesis.

Sure, Biondi beat Jager for the coveted first gold medal ever in the 50-meter freestyle at the Olympics in Seoul, and he took Jager’s world record from him in the process. Certainly without Biondi, Jager was king of the 50. But Jager without Biondi is like Wile E. Coyote without the Roadrunner.

Jager understands that.

And Biondi is starting to understand something that Jager has been on his soapbox about for years. That in order to keep the top swimmers in the game beyond their college years, the powers that be in swimming are going to have to start thinking in terms of showmanship and heroes and sponsorship and TV contracts and money going directly to the athletes.

“Tom was going to stay in swimming no matter what I was doing,” Biondi said. “He’s a competitor. He loves to swim. But with me back, we have a show.

“We have a tremendous rivalry. We’ve traded the American record back and forth five times. We’ve traded the world record back and forth four times. I think that’s something special.

“The 50 is the most exciting thing we’ve seen in competitive swimming . . . It takes place on the last day, and there’s a tremendous buildup. We can feel the attention when Tom and I are on the blocks. The people are in their seats and the media isn’t out to dinner.

“We would like to use the 50 as our vehicle to show that we can swim past 23 and that there is interest in swimming. The trend is to swim through college and then you’re out, on to the real world. In other countries, making a career of your sport is the real world.”

Biondi and Jager will put on a “show,” as Biondi so aptly puts it, when they step up on the blocks for the 50 Friday night, the final night of the Phillips 66/U.S. Swimming Long Course National Championships that begin Monday at the USC pool.

There will be a lot of pride on the line, as well as a national title and berths on the Pan Pacific team, but there will be no money on the line when the top two sprinters in the world go head-to-head.

No prize money. No appearance fee. U.S. swimmers are among the few true amateurs left in the world of sports.

“I’m coming back to swimming for the competition, for the love of it,” Biondi said. “Not for the money.

“But Tom and I do want to make people aware of how far behind swimming is as far as taking care of career swimmers . . .

“(In Seoul) Tom was the leader politically and I was doing my own thing . . .

“Since competing in the Superstars and the Slam Dunk contest and meeting people like Carl Lewis and boxers and tennis players and seeing what their sports have done for them, it’s hard to know that swimmers have to work all day to support themselves and then train. We need to develop the sponsorships and endorsements. I understand what Tom is saying more and more.

“How can we compete with the rest of the world when they’re funded and we’re being told we have to work 9-5? It’s not happening for us. That’s why we’ve seen our medal counts slip to third in total medals.

“Tom has been working for years to get direct funding to the athletes, and he’s been shot down. Things are moving very slowly.

“We need to keep our athletes in the sport. We’ve already lost (David) Berkoff. He’s the fastest backstroker ever in the history of the world. But he can’t swim for us because he had to get a job and start paying back his school loans. Harvard is an expensive school. And (Richard) Schroeder. He still wants to swim. But he has a job with an accounting firm, so he has to swim in the evenings . . .

“The truth is, right now, there is no money in swimming.”

Biondi has been able to make money as a result of the celebrity status he earned as a swimmer. But that’s not quite the same. And not everyone can win seven Olympic medals to get it started.

Biondi is represented by Parkes Brittain III at Advantage International, a Washington agency that has kept Biondi busy with appearances and endorsements and film-making.

Brittain says that Biondi’s return to swimming has nothing to do with marketing or making money. But Biondi’s presence could mean a lot of money to the sport. Brittain said: “Matt is the first swimmer to win in the Olympics and make such a big name and continue to swim. His drive is to swim fast. But he also wants to help build up swimming for the publicity, for the networks, for the sponsors.

“His continued competition with Jager is the most marketable thing to happen in swimming. We’re starting to handle invitations for them to come to meets. Track stars have been able to make appearance fees and prize money for years. Payment is available to just about every sport except swimming.

“Matt and Tom can generate the kind of attention to make the sport more marketable.”

In fact, Brittain said: “He’s taking a greater risk by swimming again than if he would just rest on his laurels. But he wanted to come back because he thinks he can swim faster.”

Neither swimmer is geared for a peak performance in this non-Olympic year, but a world record is a possibility any time these two swimmers hit the water for that one length that Biondi calls a “blast” and that Jager calls a “fly and die.”

There could have been $100,000 on the line if either Jager or Biondi had decided to join the Las Vegas Gold Swim Club. Now that Vegas World Hotel-Casino owner Bob Stupak has put up that total as a challenge to any member of the club to break a world record, there was speculation that one or both swimmers might sign on.

But Jager said that the Gold wanted more of a time commitment from him than he could make, so he recently joined the Santa Clara Swim Team. Biondi, too, was approached by the team, but is not yet ready to commit himself to a schedule of meets and appearances. Biondi has been training with his former high school coach, Stu Kahn, and will be representing the San Ramon team coached by Richard Thornton, son of his Cal coach, Nort Thornton.

Rowdy Gaines is still swimming and is still a member of the Gold team, but he has just started a job as general manager of the Oahu Club in Hawaii, structuring the masters swimming program there, and he says it’s not a good time for him to take off for this week’s meet.

However, just last weekend Gaines went to Japan for a masters meet, where he set world masters records of 23.4 in the 50-meter freestyle and 51.7 in the 100-meter freestyle.

“Those aren’t great times, but they’re not bad for a 30-year-old man,” said Gaines, who contends that swimmers are at their best at 25 or 26.

“I went 23.4 after training for two weeks. I went 23.3 last summer at 29. I’m starting to figure it out. It’s all quality, not quantity when you train for the 50. With Matt’s background, he just needs some quality work.”

Gaines applauds Biondi’s return and the efforts of Biondi and Jager to call attention to the need of swimmers for financial backing.

“Five years ago, swimming for money wasn’t even thought about,” Gaines said. “To get money into swimming, you have to interest the TV executives. But when I can sit and watch beach volleyball and board surfing and skate boarding on TV, I have to think there’s room for swimming.”

To interest TV executives, it takes recognizable names. Like Rowdy Gaines. Or, now, Biondi.

Brittain said: “Matt and Tom are the first name swimmers to continue to swim after their Olympic success. That’s significant. For Rowdy to come back in 1984, after missing the Olympics in 1980, was significant, but Rowdy hadn’t had his Olympics. Matt’s presence in Seoul was big.”

Biondi pointed to diver Greg Louganis for an example of what it takes to be recognized.

“Greg Louganis is such a great thing for diving because people learned his name in 1980 and then he came back in 1984 and in 1988,” Biondi said. “We have to find a way to support our athletes so that they can stay in swimming like that. . . .

“Through U.S. Swimming (the governing federation), the best in the world can get $800 a month to live and train. If you’re in the top three in an event, you get an extra $150. Being the best in two or three events, you still get less than $1,000 a month for housing, car, training . . . It’s not enough.”

So swimming has to develop some names and some marketability. Biondi said: “I think we should be going the direction other sports are going. I think the whole amateur sports deal will go away. How can you argue that we have to be amateurs when you can have Magic Johnson and Steffi Graf playing in the same arena?

“I think the $100,000 the guy in Las Vegas put up is a great idea. I was glad to hear about that. And there have been some meets proposed that would have paid appearance fees.”

A dual meet with the Soviets, proposed for the Labor Day weekend at West Point, fell through, much to the disappointment of both Biondi and Jager, who planned to compete there.

Jager, who is working as the aquatics director at Beach Water Park in Albuquerque, said: “When you look at the figures for the Soviet meet and see that there was $30,000 in appearance money that could go straight to the athletes, that’s half as much for one meet, on one day, as U.S. Swimming’s contract with Speedo brings the athletes for a four-year ($60,000) contract to be shared among everyone.”

It’s nothing new to hear Jager talking that way.

Jager, 25, has been campaigning for swimming as a vocation since he graduated from UCLA. But Biondi, 24, was so busy playing water polo for Cal and training for the ’88 Olympics that he wasn’t involved. But after winning his seven medals and getting out in the world, he started to see what needed to be done.

Now he’s standing up with Jager on the issues, as well as standing up against him on the blocks.

And Biondi is planning to help develop the rivalry they’ve had over the last several years until it comes to a head in the Olympic Games at Barcelona.

Biondi will not be going on to compete in the Pan Pacific Games next month because of scheduling conflicts involving commitments made before he knew he would be getting back into swimming.

So their matchup Friday will be the last for a while.

In a tuneup meet in Santa Clara two weeks ago, Biondi beat Jager after Jager got off to a terrible start. But, historically, Jager has beaten Biondi in the 50 much more often than Biondi has beaten Jager.

“I beat Matt 10 out of 15 times, but the 15th time was for the Olympic gold,” Jager said. “I lost the wrong race. I want to really concentrate on training for and swimming great at the next Olympics . . .

“I knew when Matt said, in Seoul, that he was through swimming that he’d be back and I might have another chance at swimming against him in the Olympics. But I didn’t think he’d come back this soon. I thought it would be at the World Championships (next summer.)

“If he’s ready now, that’s fine with me.”