The Morning Swim Show, Dec. 19, 2011: Josh Davis Honors Mother With Special Event

PHOENIX, Arizona, December 19. OLYMPIAN Josh Davis joins today's edition of The Morning Swim Show shortly after hosting a special event to honor his mother.

Davis, a two-time Olympian in 1996 and 2000, talks with Peter Busch about the Fastest Man in Texas event, which raised money for his foundation and brought together eight fast swimmers. He also talks about his desire to swim in the 2012 Olympic Trials and his thoughts on Tim Tebow. Watch the full show in the video player below and visit SwimmingWorld.TV for more video interviews.

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Peter Busch: This is the Morning Swim Show for Monday, December 19, 2011. I'm your host Peter Bush and the FINIS monitor today we talk to Josh Davis. The former Olympic gold medalist is still very active in the sport. He is even considering a comeback of sorts. Josh Davis show is right now in the FINIS monitor from. San Antonio. Hey Josh welcome to the show. How are you?

Josh Davis.: Good morning Peter, I'm doing great, thanks.

Peter Bush: You look great. You look like you're still swimming for Texas.

Josh Davis: Well that's good. I am trying to do my five minutes a day and that's keeping me in fighting shape.

Peter Bush: Well the sprint freestyles are still wide open in the US behind Nathan Adrian. You thinking about it?

Josh Davis: (laugh) No, no, Nathan's got it under control. My goal is to make my sixth Olympic Trials. And the 50 free cut is 23.49, and I feel if I can make my Masters practices and left a little weights. I feel like I can make the cut. And at 39 years old, I'll be happy to be at the meet with Jeff Commings.

Peter Bush: That would be remarkable. Jeff Is excited about the opportunity. Well you recently did do a swim. I know it's for your foundation for charity. Got some of the fastest guys in Texas together for kind of a sprint 50 freestyle. Tell us about it.

Josh Davis: Yeah in addition to our Mutual of Omaha Breakout swim clinics, which we do all over the country — we set a record of over a hundred cities this year — we've wanted to form a foundation to be able to give back and do some other little projects. And I got all the guys in Texas to come race. To kick of four foundation, and we call it the Fastest man in Texas. And it was pretty cool, all the guys — Ian Crocker, Garrett Weber-Gale, Brendan Hansen, Aaron Peirsol, David Walters, Dax Hill and Jimmy Feigen and myself. We all gathered at the Josh Davis Swim Center to see who is the fastest man in Texas.

Peter Bush: And who is the fastest man in Texas?

Josh Davis: Right now Jimmy has it under control. He did I think the fastest time in the country this year at 19.3. So unshaved, a few days tapered after the college invite. In fact it was two tenths faster than he went at the UT invite. So he looked awesome.

Peter Busch: How did you rank in that group?

Josh Davis: Well my goal was to not get last and so I was very proud. I out-touched Brendan Hansen and Aaron Peirsol. So all three of us were actually very pleased with our times. Brendan was 21.5, which is real fast for a breast-stroker. Perisol was 20.8 which is good because he is just been playing around. And then I was 20.6 which is my best time in few years so I'm very pleased with it.

Peter Busch: You still got it.

Josh Davis: That's not bad. So I got a good streamline and I put my head down at the finish like you said.

Peter Bush: Thank you. Somebody is listening. Thank you very much Josh. How's your mom doing? I know she had a bout with cancer. How is she doing?

Josh Davis: Thanks for asking. About 14 months ago we found out mom had brain cancer, spine cancer, and lung cancer. And those are three not good spots. So thankfully with great technology and prayers and support we've been able to attack the brain cancer good. Spine cancer's going away, it's the lung cancer that's giving her problems. So she's now getting treatment every couple days to keep that thing at bay. But, yeah we're just hoping and praying for the best and she's got a good quality of life. And it was pretty neat to see how all the guys came to race to honor my mom and honor all swim moms. And I think that's why we swim so fast. Just because we just really are thankful for all the swim moms who do so much for us.

Peter Busch: Hey we'd never make it to all those practices and meets without them right?

Josh Davis: That's right! That's right!

Peter Bush: And how is your family. You have five kids now?

Josh Davis: Yeah were holding at five. My oldest son Caleb is 14. Abby is 12, Luke is 11, Annie is 8, Liam is 6. So Luke my 11 year old is the one who likes to swim. So that's been fun. But other than that everybody's doing great and excited for the holidays.

Peter Busch: Very cool, where do you, you got any big holiday plans?

Josh Davis: Were gonna go to our relatives in Oklahoma City for a week. And then hang out here for a week. And, so yeah Santa comes to our house every Christmas morning so we'll be here in time for that.

Peter Busch: You mention your clinics earlier, you're doing all over the country. Any ones coming up early in 2012 that we can tell people to look out for?

Josh Davis: Yeah our first one for the year is in Des Moines, Iowa January 8. Kate Vandenberg will be there. So we got about 20 or 30 clinics lined up right for 2012. So we're really encouraging the clubs to call us and get on the schedule, because it's gonna be tricky to get a lot of the Olympians before the summer. But we have a lot of us who retired like Aaron Peirsol, Ian Crocker, myself, Misty Hyman, Lacey Nymeyer. We have a tremendous amount of athletes who are prepared to do clinics even while the others are gonna be hunkered down training. So I would like to say that we just had an awesome clinic in Philadelphia with Ryan Lochte. And it's always fun to do a clinic with what I think is one of the greatest swimmer on the planet right now. And so again we have about 20 athletes to choose from. So we encourage clubs to give us a call and see how they can bring some Olympians to their team.

Peter Busch: You and Lochte, huh? Interesting pairing.

Josh Davis: Well we have a great time together in fact Kim Vandenberg was the female Olympian the best on island too. And it was really cool Kristy Kowal who came by. The 2000 Olympian, she came by and hang-up with us as well. Yeah Ryan and I and Kim are all in the pool demonstrating, talking and you may not noticed but Ryan is a very good speaker. And obviously you don't know who squeals louder: the 13 year old girls or the swim moms. So it's always fun to do a swim clinic with Ryan.

Peter Busch: He does have that effect on the ladies right now.

Josh Davis: Yeah.

Peter Bush: Hey, real quick, I wanted to ask you. Since you were and are an athlete who was so open about your religion. What do you make of what we're seeing – a different sport now – with Tim Tebow being as far as I can tell the most talked-about athlete in America right now and mostly because he's always been such an outspoken Christian.

Josh Davis: Well I was thinking about getting my Tebow jersey just the other day. Because I just love the guy but it's obviously I think it's cool that his a Christian and that he's outspoken about it. But I just love that he works so hard that he just pursues excellence, that he's serving hard at, that he is all about his team. He's all about putting the accolades on others. You know that's what I love. It's not so much what it says with his mouth but it's what he does with his actions and how he lives his life. And I think that's wonderful when you can show your kids, say "Hey that guy lives right. You know he's not drinking and partying messing around. He's making good decisions and you can be great at what you do and be great outside the pool or outside the field." So that's what I like.

Peter Busch: Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's really a question, he's a good role model for kids out there in no matter what sport. So if that's really where the controversy lies then whatever I think it's great. So, Josh thanks again for joining us. Happy holidays to you and your family and look forward to saying you in Omaha next year.

Josh Davis: It's gonna be a great year and will see you guys soon. And keep up the good work.

Peter Busch: Alright thanks. That's Josh Davis joining in the FINIS monitor today. And that is it for today's show I'm Peter Bush reminding you as Josh Davis knows to keep your head down at the finish.

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