Swimming Blogs - Chris DeSantis

When I began in 1998 to scour the internet for anything I could learn about what was going on in the country, I became particularly interested in USA Swimming's published top 16 lists. As an age group swimmer myself, I was fascinated to see who the fastest 10 and under or 15-16 year old swimmers in the country were. They all seemed very fast to me. There was one name among these lists that consistently piqued my interest: Chas Morton.

At that time Morton had a number of records spanning several age groups. Initially I was completely in awe of just how good of an age grouper he was. At just 10 years old Chaz was a 54.74 in the 100 free. That was in 1982. In 2007, the top 16 lists had the fastest swimmer at 56.87. By age 12 Chas recorded a 51.85 in the 100 fly, in 2007 the fastest 12 year old was 53.47. At 14 Chas was an Olympic trials caliber swimmer with his 3:57.30 400 IM. Thats a swim that has been bettered by just one swimmer, whom you may have heard of: Michael Phelps with a 3:56.80. Chaz has had a number of his other records bettered over the years and yet the first two I have mentioned go nearly unchallenged.

The story of Chas Morton, a story I really didn't know at all, was beginning to unfold before me. Caught up in the Chas Morton experience I hungered to find out where Chas was off too next. Yet, when I looked at the 15-16 records I was startled to discover that his name was entirely absent. How could it be that a swimmer so far above his peers, a greater swimmer than Phelps up to the age of 14, swimming in the 1980s could all of a sudden be surpassed? To be fair, the record holder I found in 1998 where I expected to see Chas Morton was none other than Dave Wharton, who would go on to set the world record in the 400 IM.

Lucky for me I could still track Chas's progress into the next age group, thanks to USA Swimming's top 100 lists of times for every age group. His 400 IM, by now clearly his best event, had dropped to 3:52.94. As an 18 year old, the best time he would achieve would be 3:50, by then well off the pace of the similarly aged Dave Wharton.

I guess in many ways Chas' story is not unique in comparison with any other number of age group record holders who's trajectory of improvement dissipated as they approached adulthood. For every Ian Crocker (1:39 200 freestyle at age 14, world record holder in the 100 fly today) there is a Jason Cobb (20.40 50 free at 15 in 1999 was his lifetime best).

Conventional wisdom in the sport held that young swimmers who didn't continue to dominate their peers were victims of burnout, wounded pieces of rubble scattering in the wake of egotistical coaches. Unfortunately for me, there was no way to go beyond the results on the page and hear the story from the swimmers themselves. As far as I knew Jason Cobb simply vanished after a few years of frustration
. Chas went on to be a fairly successful collegiate swimmer. The question I find myself wanting to ask the most is fairly simple. Given the scenario of swimming otherworldly times for your age and dominating your peers for a certain period of time but then later watching as those you dominated pass you by, would Chas and others do it again? I'm hoping the answer to that hypothetical is a resounding yes. After all, its quite possible that the Chas Morton experience was all about being his best at any age.