Coleman’s Carpool: James Fike Signs Zane Grothe, goes :49 100 fly, and was the King of 6-Square

In Coleman’s Carpool we get the insider’s perspective on your favorite swimmers. SwimSwam Head of Production, Coleman Hodges, invites swimmers to take a ride with him and talk about anything…except swimming. Mostly.

If you don’t know who James Fike is, you probably should. His life revolves around swimming, in almost every way you can imagine. Let’s start from the beginning: he swam under Eddie Reese at the University of Texas, in the golden era with teammates such as Brendan Hansen, Aaron Peirsol, Ian Crocker, Nate Dusing, Neil Walker, Tommy Hannan… you get the picture. Although he never made NCAA’s during his time at Texas, he will tell you that he gained several life lessons during his time as a longhorn. He will also tell you that he was the king of 6-square (click here if you aren’t familiar with the age-old longhorn tradition) and could out-eat anyone on the team.

James Started his own swim brand, Fike Swim, and with the mantra of “Swim Different”, the company innovated the first weighted kick board. It’s a small company, but one that is growing quickly and gives back to the sport as much as possible, in part through it’s “ambassador program”. Think “suit sponsorship”, but instead of signing a contract and getting a ton of money, Fike describes his ambassador program as good faith agreements that all involved will do whatever they can to further each other’s progress. One of his ambassadors, rising distance star Zane Grothe, recently broke the 500 and 1,650 American records wearing Fike Swim‘s cap.

James isn’t just a swim fan, swim geek, and swim entrepreneur. And he isn’t, as most people his age are, a swammer. James still embraces and takes on the daily grind of training for competition, putting in around 15 hours a week in and out of the pool. Most recently, Fike swam a 49 in the 100 yard fly this month. At age 36. For reference, the 35-39 Masters American record on the 100 fly is 49.02. Not. too. shabby.