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People are getting rejected, turned away, and maligned all around America these days and it’s an unsettling trend that needs to be confronted. Caitlin Clark got left off the U.S. Olympics hoops team. Joey Chestnut is being blocked from participating in this summer’s hot dog eating contest stuffed down our throats by Nathan’s Hot Dogs. And most chilling of all, Charles Hartley is submitting articles to Swimswam.com about the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials kicking off today and they’re being left in emails unread.
The snubbing of Hartley feels like abject swimming elitism swimming throughout the SwimSwam reading community who for the past three Olympics has been bashing everything Hartley writes about Olympic swimming because they all think they’re swimming experts and that Hartley doesn’t know anything about swimming, adding less than no news insights nor original reporting.
Hartley hasn’t submitted anything to SwimSwam since the last U.S. Olympics swimming events in Tokyo in 2021 so readers are skeptical he knows about swimming and therefore his articles aren’t getting published so no one is benefiting from what he’s producing.
It’s a legitimate position to take that Hartley isn’t tuned in enough to swim to waste real estate on this swimming haven website – especially with the all-important Olympic trials splashing off today.
Knowledge is what matters and Hartley is deficient in this area. What could he possibly share with this audience about Katie Ledecky, Caeleb Dressel, Mark Spitz, Matt Biondi, Summer Sanders, Rowdy Gaines, Dan Hicks, Summer McIntosh, Bobby Finke, and all the others that this audience doesn’t already know.
Hartley is an outsider, an imposter of sorts, a borderline pariah, who did the 12 and under individual medley 49 years ago, felt like he was going to get sick after one length of fly, and then claims to understand how painful it is to swim a race. How could he really know what it’s like to be a swimmer? What pool cred does this old man have from one race 49 years ago?
All good questions.
But this is your one chance, right now, before he goes away for four more years, to soak in his swimming sentences.
Go ahead, though. Leave him out of this. See who shows up. No one’s going to watch the US Olympics women’s hoop with Caitlin. No one will care about Nathan’s hot dog eating with Chestnut.
None of you will get what you need from swimming this summer without Hartley to set it all up, provide context, and shine a light on what it all means.
Your loss.
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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