A WAVE OF LIFE

The pool deck was no doctor’s office and the fastest sprinter in America is certainly no doctor, but Gary Hall Jr. knows and needs the mobile routine.

He had been speaking about the disease that has come to define his life. Talking about diabetes, insulin and the pancreas may not make people queasy, but Hall didn’t want any reporters landing in the pool at Rose Bowl Aquatics in Pasadena last week when he went about preserving his life.

“If the sight of blood freaks you out . . . ,” Hall warned.

He looked at the cameras and note pads around him. No one turned pale and no one moved, so Hall moved on and tested his blood sugar level.

“I didn’t even bring my pin-prick thing,” he said. “I can just squeeze blood from my fingertips now without even pricking it, from repeatedly stabbing myself over and over.”

Within 15 seconds, Hall knew he needed an insulin shot. At times, he requires as many as eight a day. The Hall truth and nothing but the truth became more immediate, painted more vividly by his actions than his words.

“This is my life support,” Hall said as he injected himself with another dose of insulin. “Now, it’s like washing your hands before a meal. It becomes part of the routine. At first, it’s a pain in the neck, especially if you don’t like needles. And who likes needles?”

This made Hall think about a new acquaintance he made that day, Eric, who swims for a team in Sierra Madre. Hall spoke about the predicament of a 7-year-old who has to give himself shots of insulin every day.

“He gave me his picture,” said the 25-year-old Hall, flipping it over to read the back of it. “ ‘Age 7, diagnosed type-1 diabetes one year ago. Good luck in Sydney.’ That gives me goose bumps. That makes swimming worthwhile.”

And so, the poster boy for Generation X slackerdom has morphed into an articulate, authoritative spokesman for a disease afflicting 16 million Americans.

The Gen X image, of course, always bordered on self-parody with Hall fostering a rock ‘n’ roll image with a wink and a sly smirk.

* “I do it for the chicks and money.”

* “Swim like a fish, drink like a fish.”

Hall’s quotes of 1996 shocked the sensibilities of the staid swimming world when he splashed to two silver medals in the 50- and 100-meter freestyles and two golds in relays at Atlanta.

“I’ve always been a pretty mellow guy, actually,” he said. “There’s a reputation that precedes me as being some wild guy, and a lot of people expect that. I go to a swim team and they’ll say, ‘Do something crazy. Do something really weird.’

“I don’t think I’m an extremist. I’m not extremely left, I’m just slightly left of center and most of the swimming establishment is so far right, I seem very far away.”

Really, he is not far away, especially behind the scenes. One of Hall’s longtime associates from Phoenix tells stories about the swimmer’s playful and attentive nature with children when there were no cameras around to record the moment.

Still, there has been one constant. Before and after he was diagnosed with diabetes a year ago, Hall has always had a remarkable talent for raising the bar when the moment is most important. His dad, Gary Hall Sr., a three-time Olympian, joked that his son has two speeds--”fast and slow.”

Slow when it doesn’t matter.

Fast when it does.

Hall was not sure he would swim the 100 freestyle at the U.S trials in Indianapolis in August because his blood sugar falls in the longer race. After the diabetes diagnosis, he competed in only one 100 race before the U.S. trials, at the Janet Evans Invitational in Los Angeles, in July.

“This whole year prior to the trials there has always been that guessing game of whether Gary is gonna swim it or not,” U.S. sprinter Neil Walker said. “I told myself, ‘You can count on him being in there.’ ”

Hall did swim and finished second to Walker in an extremely competitive field. Walker won in 48.71 seconds to Hall’s 48.84. Hall’s second-place time of 49.53 at the 1996 trials would have placed him seventh at the 2000 trials.

A few days later at the trials, Hall broke the 10-year-old American record in the 50 freestyle with the second-fastest time in history (21.76). He wore Apollo Creed-type boxing trunks on the deck, playfully punched the air and cracked the shy shell of his Phoenix Swim Club teammate, 19-year-old Anthony Ervin, who finished second, also under the old record.

“I’m overjoyed for him,” Walker said of Hall. “I can kind of compare him to someone like Lance Armstrong, who conquered testicular cancer and won the Tour de France a couple of times. That’s the way I look at Gary. He had this disease put on him all of a sudden, accepted it and dealt with it and became a better swimmer.”

Gary Hall Sr. said the trials were the most nerve-racking for him as a father. He was the one who first suspected diabetes--having seen the symptoms in others in his work as an eye surgeon--when his son came over to the house and couldn’t see the big-screen TV from the back of the room in the family’s basement. The next night, Gary Jr. passed out at a reception.

Although the father had his suspicions, the final news hit hard.

“We both just collapsed in a chair, thinking, ‘Oh my God, he has diabetes.’ It was a shock,” Hall Sr. said. “We were both looking pretty pale.”

The first three doctors told Gary Jr. he could not continue to compete. Hall’s first measure of hope came when he met Dr. Anne L. Peters of UCLA. Peters, director of the Clinical Diabetes Program, was the one who told him he would be all right.

“A year and a half ago, this kid was so down and out. I didn’t think he was going to swim again,” Hall Sr. said. “To see him so depressed, and so heartbroken and so deflated, to back again. It was just thrilling to be able to see him make it. Honestly, I just think the guy has made one of the most courageous comebacks.

“Type-1 diabetics just don’t compete at this level.”

Said Gary Jr.: “You ask a lot of the big questions, the important ones: ‘What is life really about?’ It puts swimming in its place. It puts it in perspective. When you are asking very serious questions, you are looking for very serious answers. It forces you to grow up a little bit and I feel like I have.”

Hall has had other less-publicized difficulties. Four years ago, a big part of his story was his famous grandfather, Charles Keating Jr., the leading symbol of the savings and loan scandals of the ‘80s. Keating was then incarcerated at a federal facility in Tucson, and was the head of a loosely organized fan club of his grandson’s.

Keating watched the Olympics from prison. Gary Jr. supported his grandfather and called him a political prisoner. Now that Keating is free, having served five years, there is no heartwarming family ending. At the trials, Gary Jr. shook his head tersely when asked if his grandfather was at Indianapolis. Their close relationship has ended.

“It needs to be written in a book,” Gary Sr. said. “There’s too much to talk about. The day that he was released from prison, [Keating] made a choice. He chose someone other than his family.”

More recently, Hall’s training for the Sydney Games was disrupted when he had to come up with $10,000, a lasting reminder of his long dispute with FINA, the governing body of international swimming. Hall tested positive for marijuana in 1998 and was suspended by FINA for three months.

He appealed and the case ultimately made its way to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland. After Hall qualified for the Olympics, he said he was given two days to pay the $10,000 fine late last month. He sent FINA his bank statements, showing he didn’t have the money and finally had to take out a loan from USA Swimming.

“They said we will have the right to sanction you, which would basically mean a suspension, and I wouldn’t be able to participate in the Olympic Games,” Hall said.

“That’s disturbing. What’s unfair is that you can’t argue. And that’s why I was fined because I did argue, because I took it to the appeals court. I guess you get used to some certain rights and privileges afforded us in the United States.”

Said his father: “There was a conspiracy against Gary. He’s not a favorite son. He’s not a stereotypical swimmer who just walks out and gets on the blocks and swims. They don’t like some of the antics he does. It’s a good old boys’ club.”

Hall Jr. covers his disappointment with a quick wit. He was dropped by Speedo as a spokesman after the marijuana incident, and has enjoyed taking shots in his Web diary and with reporters, coyly not naming the company. Hall thought a “certain suit manufacturer” was trying to take credit for the records because of “some suit technology.”

“All these people were capable of breaking a world record whether they were wearing pajamas or sharkskin,” he said. “It’s not the suit that makes the swimmer, it’s the swimmer that makes the suit.”

How much does it help him?

Hall paused for a moment.

“It helps you cover up the privates,” he said, grinning.