Now that the Olympics are over, I wonder to myself what I am going to watch when midnight rolls around. Without Michael Phelps swimming his way into the record books and high school girls jumping around on pieces of wood that are less than four inches wide, the nights seem pretty dull.

Before the Beijing games even started, I told everyone I knew that I would not be caught dead watching them this time around. Football preseason and Major League Baseball were on primetime television, and it was impossible for the Olympics to steal the spotlight from my two favorite sports. However, that changed after one jump into the pool by Phelps. How many of us can say we were glued to our televisions at 11 p.m. screaming and hollering at this amazing swimmer to kick harder and reach farther for the wall in order to win a gold medal?

It’s truly amazing how one guy could capture the hearts of an entire country when all he was doing was swimming.

I knew once I started to watch Phelps and his ability to crush the competition, I wouldn’t miss another lap. I don’t see how anyone could. His records may never be broken again. I witnessed history in the making, and so did millions of other people. Phelps broke a record that was on the books for 36 years by former Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz. When Spitz won seven gold medals in the 1972 Olympics, that record was said to be one of the most difficult to break. That was true for three decades, until a dolphin-like man by the name of Michael Phelps jumped into the pool.

If you missed any of Phelps’ races, you missed out on a piece of history. I had never used my TIVO this much until I saw him in race one, but I wore the remote and recorder out for an entire week. We all missed out on Big Brown going for the horse racing Triple Crown, but we were rewarded with a better show. In fact, it was such a great performance that it may never happen again in our lifetime.

Shawn Redd is a junior news-editorial journalism major from Sunnyvale.