"Off the Deep End" chronicles one man's quest to quench his thirst for Olympic glory

"Off the Deep End: The Probably Insane Idea That I Could Swim My Way Through a Midlife Crisis — and Qualify for the Olympics"

by W. Hodding Carter

Algonquin, 209 pp., $21.95

BOOK REVIEW |

This book is about an aquatic dream and journey and, barring a miracle of pigs-flying proportion, the destination isn't going to be reached.

W. Hodding Carter set out to cure his midlife malaise by trying to make the Olympic team — or at least the Olympic Trials — in swimming. The 45-year-old gets a final chance to make the Trials this weekend (June 21-22) but his chances are about equal to those of the Mariners going to the World Series.

"Off the Deep End," which was released in time for Father's Day, won't be updated with his success or failure, but go ahead and consider him dead meat as far as an Olympic berth. So what? The world needs agile writers more than it needs fast swimmers, and Carter's account of his quest is an enjoyable summer read.

Carter is not some "hey, look-at-me" middle-age wordsmith off the street who decided to take up swimming and write about it. He may be old for an athlete but he has some aquatic credentials. He was an All-American swimmer at NCAA Division III powerhouse Kenyon College and knows one end of a pool from the other. His freestyle sprint times get good but not great in his four-year journey and he seems sincere when he writes that he thinks he actually has a chance of fulfilling his boyhood Olympic fantasy.

His Southern bloodline also is noteworthy. His grandfather, Hodding Carter, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper editor who preached civil rights and tolerance in Mississippi. His father, Hodding Carter III, was assistant U.S. secretary of state in the Jimmy Carter administration and the State Department spokesman.

Carter has the requisite competitiveness for his crusade, as shown by the book's dedication: "To all those aged athletes out there with a burning desire to kick some young butt."

He trots out studies and examples of aging athletes doing more than holding their own against younger specimens. Ironically, Carter is the same writer who in a 1990 Esquire Magazine article ridiculed the comeback attempt of 1972 Olympic hero Mark Spitz.

Carter does some notable things in pursuit of fitness and lower times.

He and a friend swam between half a dozen British Virgin Islands, towing their gear behind them on a surfboard on assignment for Outside Magazine. He calls it "swim trekking." He returns to Kenyon College in Ohio to train with the swim team and lives in a dormitory with two sophomores. He also swims in a relay race around Manhattan after a night with no sleep and too much caffeine, and suffers hypothermia.

He takes a job as assistant aquatics director at the YMCA in his Maine hometown to get constant access to a pool and weight room, and winds up as a swim coach.

The book is loaded with self-deprecation. Carter admits that he is selfish, that his marriage with its four children and lawyer wife has been rocky and that he has considered his writing career to be a disappointment.

Realizing that his audience will include swimmers, the book also delves into swimming techniques, and when it does, he might as well be writing in Hungarian for most of us. But he has the good sense in a footnote to say, "Confused? Watch Ian Thorpe underwater on Youtube.com." In fact, the clever use of footnotes is one of the book's strengths.

Toward the end, he writes that his Olympic dream and hard work has resulted in him being "both happy and satisfied."

"I've been happy many times in my life, but satisfied? Hardly ever."

One thing he ought to be satisfied with is the book, even though it lacks complete closure.

Craig Smith is a Seattle Times sports reporter: csmith@seattletimes.com