The policy at the Fox Point municipal swimming pool states that if you want to jump off the diving board, you first have to prove that you can swim.
As (then) Fox Point pool manager Dwight Davis administered this 25-yard swim test to 7-year-old Garrett Weber-Gale in the summer of 1993, he knew he was watching a special athlete.
“Hey, that’s pretty good,” Davis told the boy. Weber-Gale had already passed the test, but Davis, the boys’ and girls’ swim coach and physical education teacher at Nicolet High School since 1985, wanted to see what the kid could do.
“Can you do it again, except backstroke this time?” Weber-Gale obliged, and then did his best breast stroke and butterfly. After the exhibition, Davis talked to the boy’s mother and discovered that they lived in the Nicolet school district.
“I don’t want him going out for soccer,” he told Diane Weber. “Tell him to come see me [when he gets to high school].”
Though he liked what he saw that day, there was no way Davis could have foretold that the little boy who just wanted permission to jump off the diving board would one day lead the American contingent of sprinters to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China.
By the time Weber-Gale, who was born in Stevens Point and moved to Fox Point when he was 7, joined the Nicolet swim team as a freshman, Davis had completely forgotten about him. When Weber reminded him of the swim test back in 1993 at the Fox Point pool, Davis simply replied, “Oh, so this is the kid.”
“He wasn’t an impact swimmer,” said Davis, recalling Weber-Gale’s rather ordinary initial times in the 100-yard backstroke and 100-yard freestyle events. Swimming was not a priority for Weber-Gale at the time.
After being tardy for swim practice a couple of times that year, Davis asked him why he was late. Weber-Gale told him that he had been practicing with the bowling club, and asked if it was OK if he did that a couple of times a week.
“I told him ‘Yeah, you can be on the bowling team. But you can’t be on the swim team, too,’” said Davis. Weber-Gale stuck with swimming, and his times improved enough that by the end of the season he qualified for the state meet in the 100 backstroke.
That freshman year of high school was the first in which Weber-Gale swam year-round. His times continued to improve and, in his junior year, he set the state record in the 100-yard backstroke at the state meet.
At Davis’ suggestion, Weber-Gale went to train with the Circle C Swimming club in Austin, Texas, the summer before his senior year. It was there, under coach Randy Reese, that Weber-Gale changed his primary stroke from backstroke to freestyle. His improvement was so dramatic that he stayed in Texas for the first semester of his senior year.
“That year was the first year I ever started working hard [at swimming],” Weber-Gale said in a telephone interview with The Chronicle from Palo Alto, Calif., where he is training with the national team at the United States Olympic training center there.
Weber lived with her son that semester in Texas, while his father, Mark Gale, was back in Milwaukee and their daughter, Hillary, was at the Rhode Island School of Design.
“It was a huge sacrifice for my parents,” said Weber-Gale. “It was really hard on them but we knew that it was really going to make a difference so that’s why we decided to stay in Texas.”
Weber-Gale returned to Nicolet for second semester, graduated with his class, and set the public high school national record in the 100-yard freestyle along the way.
In May, Weber-Gale earned a degree in corporate communication and a certificate in business foundations from the University of Texas, where he torched school, national and international records in the pool and earned a 3.24 grade point average in the classroom. His résumé reads just as you would expect of an Olympic athlete:
• National record setter in high school
• Three-time Big 12 Conference Swimmer of the Year
• 18-time NCAA All-American
• 2005 and 2007 Gold medal winner at World Championships
The 6-foot-2-inch, 182-pound Weber-Gale even has the pedigree of an all-star swimmer. His mother swam at Centenary College in N.J., and her brother and father swam at their respective colleges as well.
Achieving all that success was difficult, said Weber-Gale, but the hardest experience he went through in college came at the 2004 United States Olympic Team Trials. Though he was only 18, Weber-Gale felt he was ready to take on the world.
The top six swimmers in the 100-meter freestyle qualify for the Olympics; Weber-Gale finished seventh, 23-hundreths of a second away from going to Athens, Greece.
“It was the biggest disappointment of my life,” said Weber-Gale. “I promised myself after that meet that I wouldn’t feel that pain again, and I haven’t yet, so I keep living that promise.”
According to his coaches and family, finding motivation has never been a problem for Weber-Gale.
“He can be frightfully focused,” said Mark Gale. “We never had to motivate him.”
Gale recounted stories of his son announcing that he would get a certain GPA, and then achieving that goal.
“On his own, [during his senior year of high school] he made a sign for his room with the 100-yard national freestyle record on it in glow-in-the-dark paint” so that when he went to sleep, that would be the last thing he sees, said Gale.
Gale reported that he saw a similar sign in his son’s room on a recent trip to Texas, but this time his glow-in-the-dark message was the American record in the 100-meter freestyle. Weber-Gale broke that record in the semifinal heat at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Omaha, Neb. in early July.
Though that record was eclipsed minutes later by Jason Lezak, Weber-Gale won the final heat in the 100, and more unexpectedly, he won the 50-meter freestyle as well.
If everything goes according to plan, Weber-Gale will compete in four events at the Olympics: the 50 and 100-meter freestyle, the 400 freestyle relay and the 400 medley relay.
Weber-Gale said he likes Team USA’s chances in Beijing.
“I think we’re going to win a ton of gold medals,” he stated confidently. "I think this is the best Olympic swim team ever assembled. There are several events where we could get multiple medals and we could win all three relays.”
Weber-Gale will not be the only Jewish swimmer representing the United States in Beijing. California natives Jason Lezak, Ben Wildman-Tobriner and 41-year-old sensation Dara Torres will be competing, and, like Weber-Gale, all three are sprinters.
At the trials, Lezak and Wildman-Tobriner qualified by finishing second to Weber-Gale in the 100 and 50-meter freestyle, respectively. “We joke about being the Jew crew,” said Weber-Gale of the three male Jewish swimmers on the U.S. team.
Torres, who in 2005 was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, won the 50 and 100-meter freestyle events at the trials, but will only swim the 50 in Beijing.
The swim competition is scheduled for Aug. 9-Aug. 17.
Extra information not found in the print edition:
Though this was his second Olympic Team Trials, and he had already been an All-American and an NCAA champion, Weber-Gale was not a major name in the U.S. swimming scene until the 2008 All-American Long Course Championships, which were held at the University of Texas this past March.
“There is a big difference between being an NCAA champion and being an Olympic trials champion,” said Weber-Gale.
At that meet in March, Weber-Gale won the 50 and 100-meter freestyle events, beating his previous personal bests by approximately ½ second and one second, respectively. He further lowered those times at the Olympic Team Trials in Omaha in July. Thus, over the last year, Weber-Gale has shaved two seconds off of his 100-meter freestyle and one second off of his 50-meter freestyle.
That remarkabe improvement was the result of a number of factors, Weber-Gale explained. A very conscientious student, Weber-Gale studied hard and succeeded in the classroom. During the spring semester in 2008, he took only one class, which gave him more time to concentrate on swimming.
“School was really difficult for me,” said Weber-Gale. “You put in almost 30 hours a week training, and you have school on top of that. I’m kind of a perfectionist…I want to do everything great, I wanted to get awesome grades, and I was hard on myself studying and getting good grades.
“Now that that’s more alleviated [he graduated in May], my mind is so much more free to focus on swimming and what I needed to do in the pool, and so that really made a huge difference for me.
“That enabled me to have a great meet in March, where I went best times, and then once I went those best times, my confidence went so much higher than it had ever been in swimming…and once you get that confidence, and know you can do something special, it’s hard to revert that.”
Weber-Gale also stated that being completely healthy this year contributed to his lower times. Over the course of his college career he had nagging injuries such as micro-tears in his pectoral muscle during his freshman year, and a hyper-extended back during his sophomore year.
Though he improved every year, those setbacks kept him from lifting weights as much as he would have liked. This year, he reported that he has gained a lot of strength as a result of the work he has been able to do in the weight room.
Mark Weber said that the improvement also has come as the result of subtle changes in his stroke, of finding his perfect racing weight, (he slimmed down from 188 or 189 to about 182) and his physical and mental maturation.
“Most sprinters really start to mature [physically] at about his age,” said Gale.
Weber-Gale also recently discovered that he has a mild allergy to eggs, so cutting them (for the most part) out of his diet (he does not get a severe reaction, and he does eat products that have eggs as part of the ingredients), may have helped as well.
As far as regulating what he eats and maintaining a healthy diet, Weber-Gale is about as strict as they come. He said he has always enjoyed eating good food, but after moving out of the dorms, where all his meals were prepared for him in the athletic dining hall, and into his own place at the beginning of his junior year, he realized how much he valued a quality meal.
“I had to figure out how to cook,” he said. “At first, when I started cooking, I was terrible. The food was awful [and] I could never get anything timed right.”
After gaining more experience however, Weber-Gale started to improve. He eagerly anticipated how his meals would turn out, experimented with new recipes, and found great satisfaction in cooking a good meal.
Weber-Gale would call his parents to discuss the meals he was preparing, so for Chanukah that year they bought him a set of knives, some other cooking utensils, and a set of private lessons with a professional chef who ran a catering company in Austin.
“I went to his house for [six or seven] Saturdays and we would just cook all day and he would teach me things about cooking, and different techniques, and about flavors … it was awesome,” said Weber-Gale of the five or six hour sessions.
Weber-Gale rarely eats out and closely monitors his nutritional intake. He eats the right foods at the right time of day to help his body recover from and prepare for workouts. For this year’s Olympic trials, his parents prepared all of his meals for him and lugged them to Nebraska in coolers and on dry ice.
Weber-Gale’s sister Hillary, 25, a fashion designer in women’s wear at J.Crew Inc. in New York, also went to Omaha and will be in Beijing with their parents to support Garrett.
Dwight Davis, Weber-Gale’s high school coach, commented on how much the Weber/Gale family has helped Garrett.
“The sacrifice the families have to make is tremendous,” said Davis. “His family has given him a huge amount of support.”
Weber-Gale talked about his father’s work ethic as an inspiration to him.
Said Diane Weber, “You can’t attain a level like this without family support. My husband walks on water” in Garrett’s eyes.
Weber noted, as did Davis, the importance of the relationship between coach and athlete.
“He’s had lots of really great coaches, said Weber. “Dwight Davis was a great high school coach.”
Former Olympic athlete and coach Jack Nelson, who ran the Jack Nelson Swim School at the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was also an influence on Weber-Gale.
“He was the positive spin on swimming” for Garrett, said Weber, noting that Weber-Gale would train there when the family visited her parents in Ft. Lauderdale. “He was a happy coach. He had the utmost respect for his swimmers. He asked them how they were doing in school, how this or that test went…he knew everything about these kids. It was a great opportunity for Garrett to see the positive side of swimming.”
It was Davis who recommended that Weber-Gale attend the University of Texas, because Davis had an established relationship with head coach Eddie Reese, the brother of Circle C founder Randy Reese, and felt that they would get along well.
“I’ve know athletes that have gone down to Texas, and that [program] seemed to be a good fit” for Weber-Gale, said Davis.
Diane Weber said that UT had always been on Garrett’s "radar," because Reese was the "most successful coach in American history" … and she "trusted that he could be the closest thing to an absentee father," noting that an athlete spends more time with his college coach than with anyone else at school. Weber also mentioned Reese’s assistant, Kris Kubik, as a reason why he chose Texas.
Weber-Gale’s personal heroes include his father, grandfathers, Brett Favre and Rabbi Ronald Shapiro. Prior to his bar mitzvah at Congregation Shalom, Weber-Gale received Hebrew tutoring twice a week from Shapiro’s sons, Ari and Danny. He cited Rabbi Shapiro as one of the reasons why he’s so proud to be Jewish.
“I had a really good rapport with [Rabbi Shapiro]," said Weber-Gale. "I would go to his house two or three days a week … we would talk, we would hang out. He had a huge impact on me — just to be a good person, to take care of other people, and do what’s right. He’s going to go down as one of the greatest men I have ever known in my entire life.”
Weber-Gale plans on swimming through 2009, including competing in the World Championships, but beyond that he will wait and see.
“I would love to swim through 2012,” said Weber-Gale, “but you have to take it year by year in athletics. You have to see how you body holds up. I have to take care of this Olympics first.”
Weber-Gale did say that he eventually wants to get an MBA in entrepreneurship, and noted on his Web site that he would like to own a business one day. He also said that he is interested in competing in the Maccabiah Games in the future.
Notes
When Weber-Gale was a young boy, he attended a Milwaukee Wave soccer game at the Bradley Center and sat in a suite. Brett Favre was in the suite as well, and signed a no. 4 jersey for Weber-Gale. His parents had the jersey framed, but eventually the signature wore off. So Diane Weber sent the jersey to Favre to be re-signed, along with a T-shirt of Weber-Gale with his signature and a note saying that one day Garrett would be a world record holder.
Favre signed the jersey again and sent it back to Weber-Gale, who did become a world record holder at the University of Texas. Now that he is an Olympian, Diane Weber said that she plans on sending Favre a note saying “I hope you kept the T-shirt!”
“The hyphenated names are going to dominate this Olympics,” said Weber, of the fact that Weber-Gale and Ben Wildman-Tobriner and qualified for the games.
“I guess G-d wants the chosen people to represent us,” Mike Bottom, new men’s head swim coach at the University of Michigan told Weber-Gale recently.
Weber-Gale has never met Mark Spitz, but he has met four-time (Jewish) Olympic gold medalist Lenny Krayzelburg. Krayzelburg owns and operates the Lenny Krayzelburg Swim School year-round at the Westside Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles.
Weber-Gale is friends with two-time Olympic gold medalist Neil Walker, who is not Jewish but is a native of Verona and also a University of Texas alumnus. Eight members of the U.S. swim team that are going to Beijing are also members of the Longhorn Aquatics club at the University of Texas. All eight are men.
Michael Phelps will try again to top Spitz’s record of seven gold medals at one Olympic Games — he qualified in eight events. Phelps came up short at the 2004 games in Athens, winning six gold and two bronze, making him the first Olympic athlete to win eight medals at a non-boycotted Olympic Games. The other is Russian gymnast Aleksandr Dityatin, who won eight medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
Click here to go to Garrett Weber-Gale’s Web site, where you can see his best times, read some of his favorite recipes, and watch videos of Garrett in action. If those videos don’t work, try this.
Here is Weber-Gale’s profile on usaswimming.org
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