Finally Cashing In : Stewart Tried Setting Records for Money in Las Vegas, but He Found Best Route to Olympic Gold Went Through Tennessee

He left tickets for Elvis and Sheena Easton at the 1991 World Swimming Championships, and works incessantly at getting an appearance on “The Arsenio Hall Show” and a date with fellow 1992 Olympian Summer Sanders.

He won’t shave his head, as many male swimmers do, because his father is bald and he fears his hair won’t grow back.

Melvin Stewart, the world record-holder in the 200-meter butterfly, is the clown prince of American swimming.

When he was asked about his intentional false start in the 100-meter butterfly, here at the U.S. Olympic trials, Stewart jokingly told a reporter: “If I told you everything (about my strategy), I would have to kill you.”

But behind Stewart’s image is a competitor, “a swimmer geek,” in his words.

The 23-year-old who admitted to having had “dollar signs in his eyes” had the courage to admit last fall that his preparation for the trials would be best under Coach John Trembley at the University of Tennessee.

Stewart had left Tennessee and Trembley last spring for the glamour and glitz of Las Vegas, where Stewart worked at breaking a world record so he could cash in on a $100,000 prize offered by casino owner Bob Stupak.

At U.S. Swimming’s national championships last April, Stupak literally put the money on a table at King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, Wash.

But Stewart was 1.2 seconds slower than his world mark of 1 minute 55.69 seconds.

Stewart tried again last August at the summer nationals, but his time was exactly one second off his record.

Realizing then that his chance to win Olympic medals in four events might be better accomplished with his coach of six years, Stewart left Las Vegas a month later and returned to Trembley.

“It’s good to back with him,” Stewart said. “I wasn’t as happy in Las Vegas. It was a good experience, but I had to go back to where I should be.”

Stewart had no quarrel with Las Vegas Gold Coach Ira Klein and club president Dick Carson, who treated Stewart as a member of his family.

“They weren’t happy about me leaving, but they understood,” Stewart said.

Trembley welcomed Stewart back and did not dwell on their falling out.

In principal, money was at issue, but Stewart took it personally.

The rift began when Stewart announced last spring that he was passing up his final season of eligibility at Tennessee to explore his endorsement potential and accept monthly stipends and incentive awards from U.S. Swimming, the governing body of the sport.

Trembley will not discuss the matter, but Stewart said that Trembley requested a monthly coaching payment.

“I didn’t know how to take it,” Stewart said at the time. “I was hurt.”

That pain has been forgotten.

“It’s kind of funny,” Stewart said. “It doesn’t seem like I left. On my first day back, J.T. said: ‘How are you doing, Stew? Here’s your warm-up set?’ ”

It was not quite as easy making peace with his training partners, the Tennessee team he had abandoned.

Stewart knew that some of them considered him greedy.

“They don’t understand,” he said. “They wanted me to swim for the team and score points at NCAAs.”

Other swimmers are more understanding, particularly world record-holder Mike Barrowman, Stewart’s friend and roommate on national team trips.

They often argue about which stroke is more beautiful, the butterfly or the breaststroke, Barrowman’s specialty.

Barrowman tells Stewart that even if the butterfly is more graceful, Stewart screws it up by turning his head and breathing to the side.

Most butterfliers lift their heads straight up to breathe.

Stewart developed as a sidewinder because his first coach, Frankie Bell, taught him that style when he was 9.

“We had every intention of changing it,” Trembley said. “But after watching him we didn’t because it was so natural to him.”

Stewart’s breathing style and his interest in Sanders were the subject of a skit performed last summer by part of the U.S. national team.

The scene opened with sprinter Steve Crocker, playing the part of Stewart, lying on a bed noticing the indentation his head made in the pillow and thinking aloud that his head must weigh 14 pounds.

Just as the Stewart character realized that lifting his head to breathe was taxing, Sanders crossed the “stage” and the Stewart character turned his head to look at her and came upon the idea of breathing to the side.

Stewart claims to be interested in dating Sanders and he embellishes his playboy image by saying that that the 1992 U.S. Olympic women’s team is the greatest-looking team ever assembled.

“I’m happy to be a member of the team in more ways than one,” Stewart said.

Sanders paints a different picture.

“I don’t know if it’s an act, but he doesn’t talk to many girls,” Sanders said. “I don’t know if he’s afraid of us. He won’t talk to me.”

David Wharton, the former USC All-American who finished second to Stewart in the 200 butterfly trials, believes that Stewart’s carefree image belies his dedication.

“I don’t think you can break a world record and not work hard,” Wharton said. “That might be overshadowed by his image.”

Stewart said: “I’m not a fool but if you knew my lifestyle, you’d say, ‘Is he really an athlete?’ I think you work hard and you play hard.”

With Trembley on the deck, Stewart has no choice about working hard. Part of Trembley’s training program includes sets of swims under times that Trembly believes are unrealistic.

“It is a test of his outer limits,” Trembley said.

On a few occasions, Stewart has passed those tests.

The one that stands out in Trembley’s mind was a set of six butterfly swims. The first 210 meters were designed to be relaxed, then Stewart was supposed to accelerate into the speed of the second 100 meters of his competition-pace 200 butterfly.

“I didn’t think he’d be able to handle it,” Trembley said. “But he did.”

Stewart’s drive stems from his fifth-place finish in the 200 butterfly at the 1988 Olympic Games at Seoul.

“I was devastated,” Stewart said. “(West German Olympic gold medalist Michael) Gross got out of the water and he was waving to the crowd. That never left me. If I start to slack off it’s a good motivator.”

Except among swimming’s inner circle, Stewart was known almost exclusively as a 200 butterfly swimmer, but Trembley was sure Stewart could expand his horizons, and he has.

“Every now and then, he would come up to me and tell me how great someone else was training,” Stewart said. “Then he’d say, ‘Are you gonna let him take it?’ ”

Stewart’s name was not even mentioned in the U.S. Swimming publicity for the 100 butterfly or the 200 freestyle, yet he earned a berth on the Olympic team Monday in the 100 butterfly when he touched second, .01 behind Pablo Morales.

And in last Sunday’s 200 freestyle, he finished an even more surprising third and nailed down a place on the 800 freestyle relay team.

His triumph Thursday in the 200 butterfly was expected but his near-record performance--he was .03 shy of his world mark--was not, considering the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the trials.

If Stewart beats Morales in the 100 butterly in Barcelona, he will have a chance for a fourth medal as the butterfly swimmer on the 400 medley relay team.

“I wanted to be more than a one-event swimmer,” Stewart said. “I can’t tell you how well I slept Monday night. Some people dream of sex, I dream of an Olympic gold medal.”