This Family Has a Deep Gene Pool

It was all about the father, the son and the Hall spirit that electric night in Long Beach, coming together after the final race at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in 1976.

Gary Hall Sr. pushed past the odds at the seemingly advanced age of 24, making his third Olympic swim team by finishing second in the 100-meter butterfly. The husband and father, who had taken leave from medical school to train for one more Olympics, celebrated the extraordinary accomplishment by picking up his toddler and holding the boy in the air from the pool.

Twenty-eight years later, the father and son are returning to Long Beach, completing the family circle. The toddler in that famous picture, Gary Hall Jr., is now the owner of eight Olympic medals and will be trying to make his third consecutive Olympic team at the U.S. swimming trials, which start Wednesday.

“I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been, swimming faster than I’ve ever swum, and I’m ready,” Hall said before predicting that to beat him someone would have to go faster than 21.5 seconds in the 50-meter freestyle.

If the 29-year-old qualifies for the Olympics in Athens, the Halls will become the first U.S. father and son to have competed in three Olympics each, according to USA Swimming. And for some extra meaning, the final pieces could come together in downtown Long Beach, at a temporary aquatic complex that is only a few miles from the Belmont Plaza pool that was home to the 1976 trials.

Gary Sr., an eye surgeon in Phoenix, grew up in Garden Grove. But his father’s orthopedic practice had been in Long Beach and he trained at a swimming club in Long Beach, retaining a special feeling for the community.

“It was kind of home,” Gary Sr. said by telephone. “It would be full circle. It was a very special moment.”

The 1976 trials had tested his nerves in an especially cruel way. His brother-in-law, Charles Keating III, a breaststroker, had been on the bubble all week and didn’t find out he made the team until shortly before Hall’s last race.

Hall said the eight finalists for the 100 butterfly were all told to pack their belongings because only the Olympic qualifiers would get on the bus. The rest? Talk about having your bags packed and no place to go.

Hall spoke to his wife about the decision. “It was a terrible thing,” he said. “I told Mary, ‘I’m not packing. I’m not superstitious, but I’m not packing. If I make it, I’ll figure it out later.’ I’m not going to take a bag back home. It was very close. It was really tight.... I picked Gary up. I was so happy.”

It would be something if Gary Jr. returned the favor in Long Beach after one of his individual races, the 100-meter freestyle, or the 50 freestyle, in which he holds the American record and an Olympic gold medal from the 2000 Sydney Games. In all, Hall has four gold medals, three silver and one bronze. Gary Sr. won a silver medal in 1968, another silver in 1972, and a bronze in 1976 in Montreal.

Hall Sr.’s staying power was extraordinary because swimmers did not have the same sort of commercial opportunities. But longevity and Gary Jr. are an equally fascinating combination, especially after he worried that diabetes would shorten his career. Who would have thought that the iconoclastic youngster on the pool deck, wearing leather motorcycle pants and a purple Grateful Dead shirt over his swimsuit at the 1996 trials, would morph into such an enduring figure in the sport?

“I would not have predicted that,” Gary Sr. said. “Gary has increasingly warmed up to the sport. He knows how to pace himself. He doesn’t put all his effort into non-Olympic years. That’s helped keep him fresh. I don’t think Gary’s ready to retire. I think he’s having more fun now. He’s very motivated to change the sport.”

To that end, Hall has formed the Race Club, along with co-founder and promoter David Arluck. Though sprinters from many nations have gathered to train in a cooperative effort with Hall in Islamorada in the Florida Keys, they describe the venture as more of a shared ideology. Eventually, they would like to create a ranking system and a series of match races, featuring attractive rivalries such as Hall vs. Alexander Popov of Russia or Michael Phelps vs. Ian Thorpe of Australia.

Arluck and Hall want to take swimming to another level, or quite possibly, to a whole new realm. There were dismissive of last year’s Duel in the Pool at Indianapolis. Hall noted that Australia sent its “B-list” team and called it, jokingly, “Drool in the Pool.”

“The average American’s attention span [is not] seven minutes, let alone seven days. Part of our challenge is marketing the package we can sell,” Hall Jr. said.

For him, the Race Club entrepreneurial experience has been satisfying on a sporting basis too.

“I’m actually enjoying swimming more today than I ever have,” he said. “If I’m able to do what I know can be done with the Race Club, I feel that it will be a greater contribution to the sport of swimming than anything else I have ever done. If I’m able to create better opportunities for swimmers tomorrow, it would even be better than gold medals at the Olympics.”

Gary Sr. said that he met with Thorpe recently in Arizona, going to a baseball game when the Australians came to Phoenix after high-altitude training in Flagstaff, Ariz. He said the Australian star, as well as Michael Klim, were interested in the Race Club’s goals and potential.

Hall’s longevity in the pool can be traced to his varied interests out of the pool. For instance, he has an almost unmatched ability to disappear from the international scene and reappear without seeming to miss a stroke.

“Gary’s a multi-faceted person,” said California swim coach Mike Bottom, who has worked periodically with Hall since 1995 and for the last two months in Berkeley. “I think if he had to focus on one thing, on anything, that he would be bored and eventually not want to do whatever that is, whether it’d be swimming, art work, any one thing. He’s got a brilliance about him in a lot of different areas that tends to create boredom when he does it so many times.”

Hall, a boxing fan, enjoys striking a pose on the deck.

To keep fresh, Hall has redefined training, whether it’s incorporating boxing or free diving and spear fishing into his regime.

“That, I don’t think anybody else is doing,” Hall said. “I can say that it definitely improved my swimming in the swimming pool. If you’re used to swimming in the ocean, it’s like you’re a runner that only runs uphill, then gets to a race and then can run on level ground.

“Swimming in the ocean, it’s the same thing. Once you get to a swimming pool, they’re aren’t any currents, swimming is a lot easier.”

Hall surprisingly raised the bar a bit early when he appeared at the Janet Evans Invitational meet at Long Beach in June and went 22.26 seconds in the 50. “If this is an indicator, I think I’ll be swimming faster than any man swum before,” he said.

His father doesn’t question it.

“He wouldn’t say that if he had any doubts in his mind,” Hall Sr. said. “I think it’s a reflection of his confidence. It’s not in Gary’s nature to say something that he might not be able to back up. I think he’s looking at this as a new era, older athletes swimming longer and new opportunities.”