OMAHA, Neb. — It was 106 degrees here Thursday. Not the kind of day that makes you long for Omaha.
But I’m gonna miss it here.
Rumor is, and only rumor, that this may well be the final time the U.S. swim Trials are held in Omaha. They’ve been here four times in a row: 2008, 2012, 2016 and now 2021. Indianapolis wants 2024 and, to be honest, it kind of feels like a change of pace might well be in order, that the big field house that is Lucas Oil Stadium might well be next.
If that is the case, Omaha has had a great run -- inside the basketball arena, now called CHI Health Center, just up the street from the baseball field, TDAmeritrade Park, home of the NCAA men’s College World Series, which this year gets underway Saturday.
The Olympic Trials pool between Friday’s prelims and finals
It has been a great privilege to have been here for all four of the Omaha Trials. (These Trials make for my fifth. My first was in Long Beach in 2004. Don’t ask. The stands were so rickety!)
The Trials are a big deal here in Omaha. Always have been, and that’s why you can’t necessarily say Indy is a done deal. The Republican governor of Nebraska, Pete Ricketts, made an appearance here Friday night. In typical low-key Nebraska fashion, he waved hi from the stands. No speechifying.
In 2008, Nathan Adrian and his family camped out often in the lobby of the Hilton across the street from the arena here in Omaha; then he was 19; now he is 32 and married, a proud new girl dad.
In 2008, I stayed at the Courtyard Marriott a couple blocks away from the arena. So, apparently, did Ryan Lochte. Under a hot Nebraska sun, he in a pair of floppy Hush Puppies — tied, no way, dude — and I walked over to the arena together one day, chit-chatting. Good luck, I told him as we went our ways at different doors. Yo, he said.
Lochte has gotten maybe one of the worst raps of anyone I’ve known in sports. So many people think he is dumb as a rock. He is the farthest thing from. He is also one of the sweetest guys you would ever want to meet. He is amazingly wonderful with children.
Here is to Ryan Lochte, 36 years old, father of two, who holds the world record in the men’s 200 IM and, in his last chance to make the Tokyo team, in that 200 IM Friday night, finished well back, seventh, in 1:59.67., about a minute slower than his times in both the semifinals and prelims. With the race over, Lochte, on the pool deck, stopped to do a quick TV interview, then turned to his left to find and hug his family. He came back to his right and got another hug, from Michael Phelps. Then he walked off — to a big roar from the crowd.
Michael Andrew won the 200 IM, in 1:55.44. Chase Kalisz took second, in 1:56.97.
As is known, I co-wrote Phelps’ book with him after the 2008 Games. That project began in earnest here, in Omaha, at those Trials. The note-taking by me. Yikes. Way, way, way, way, way worse, the pressure on Michael — because, of course, while we all take it for granted now, 13 years later, that the eight-for-eight gold in Beijing is a given, here in Omaha earlier that summer, it was anything but. How about that Jason Lezak?
In 2012, when she was 40, Janet Evans gave it another try here. We all knew, Janet knew, she was not going to make the team. That was not the point. Afterward, she gathered a bunch of reporters — we had all known her a long time — and said, “I think for me the hardest part was finding the courage. Do you know what I mean?”
The athletes, the swimming, the world records, the pressure, the tears, the 1-2 or go home of the Trials is unmatched.
But so, too, the gracious hospitality of the people in Omaha and around Nebraska.
As the Counting Crows sang way back in the early ‘90s in their song, ‘Omaha’:
Omaha, somewhere in middle America
If you're right to the heart of matters
It's the heart that matters more …
My wife and I live in California. Our neighbors two houses down are from Omaha — ‘Ohmigod, Nebraska,’ they call it — and one of the things about Omaha is that it is a big secret. When it’s not 106, there’s tons to do here. Really.
As Peyton Manning used to say at the line of scrimmage, Omaha!
The restaurant scene is amazing. Maybe not if you’re a vegan but OK.
This is a red state, sure, but if tattoos and piercings are your thing, there are plenty of coffee shops where you can hang out. No prob.
The best part about Omaha, and Nebraska in general, and at the risk both of gross generalization and stereotype — apologies — is the folks. Almost always, the people are crazy Midwestern nice.
They ask how you’re doing. They mean it. They ask if you might want or need help. They mean it.
They are insane Nebraska Cornhusker fans. This is great. Because Nebraska is in the Big Ten, and so is the school I went to, Northwestern, and the two teams regularly play intensely competitive football games, and everyone here knows the history of every one of the games, and if I say I’m a Northwestern guy, the Nebraska people are delighted. (Compare: Michigan people. Or Ohio State people.) A game at Memorial Stadium is, hands-down, the best place in the Big Ten for a visiting fan to see a game. All of us in purple are regularly invited to join Cornhusker tailgates. Imagine that happening in Ann Arbor or Columbus. No way.
Just outside the arena now called CHI is a Lewis and Clark museum. I’ve never really been exactly sure why it’s here but I have always loved the story of the Corps of Discovery — it’s the early 1800s version of space travel now. The Missouri River is here, obviously (well, that should be obvious), indeed just outside the arena; it flows downstream toward St. Louis; Lewis and Clark went the other way, toward the Rocky Mountains; imagine, just imagine, in the first years of the 1800s what it must have been like trying to go upstream on the Missouri River. Crazy.
Back to 2021. It’s been great, Omaha. Thanks for everything. Go Huskers, kinda.