CHULA VISTA, Calif. — Bob Bowman was at a matinee at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on March 1 when his cell phone rang.

It was Michael Phelps.

For weeks Phelps, the winner of a record eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games, had been in and out of the pool, dealing with the fallout from a photograph last month of him in a British tabloid smoking marijuana. But Phelps was also wrestling with whether he wanted to continue swimming.

"My goal was to do something that no one else had done before, to do something that no one else had ever seen before, and I did that," Phelps said Saturday, referring to Beijing. "At that time, I was really lost at what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. I needed to sort of sit down and think about, if I don't swim, what am I going to do? And if swim, what do I want to do?"

On the first Sunday of this month, Phelps finally made up his mind.

"Are you ready?" he said to Bowman on the phone.

Phelps is back in the pool with an eye on this summer's FINA World Championships in Rome and 2012 Olympic Games.

"I got points of view from everybody, my mom, Bob, (agent) Peter (Carlisle)," Phelps said. "But deep down inside, I was the one who needed to decide what I was going to do — if I still had passion and still had drive to get back in the pool. I literally just woke up one Sunday. What am I doing? Why am I even questioning stopping now? I still have four more years and then I'll be done. In my mind, there were still things I wanted to accomplish. There are still more things out there that I want to do and that I can do to help change the sport, and that's why I'm back. Because I want to do it."

Just weeks after he was named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year, The News of the World on Feb. 2 ran a photograph of Phelps with a bong to his lips with the headline "What A Dope." In the subsequent controversy that erupted, Phelps was dropped by Kelloggs and not re-signed by AT&T. He was suspended by USA Swimming for three months

"I did make a mistake and it was stupid," Phelps said. "I've been able to learn from all the mistakes

I've ever made, and that's what I'm doing from this. It seems like whenever I'm out of the water, that's when something happens.

"My comfort is obviously being back in the pool. I'm just happy to be back in the pool."

"There was a time period there when I thought that (Phelps retiring) was a possibility," Bowman said.

"It took a lot of soul searching."

Phelps swam 17 races in nine days in Beijing and his schedule did not lighten once the Olympic flame was extinguished.

"Michael didn't get a breath after the last relay," Bowman said. "He went to a drug test. We went to press conference. He started doing a non-stop press event that lasted for four months. I remember thinking, 'I feel so sorry for him. He can't even just really relax for a day and enjoy it.'"

By the time Phelps and some friends hit Columbia, S.C., he was ready to cut loose.

Hoff said, "I felt like I'd never seen him just so low. I think he really felt like everyone hated him and I said, 'Michael, 90 percent of the people who know anything are supporting you and giving you love, and no one holds anything against you.' I think he kind of had to realize that before he could feel better. Once he did, it almost like a switch had been flipped. The next day in practice he was having fun and not just going through the motions."

Within days, Bowman had in his possession a sheet of paper containing the rejuvenated Phelps' goals.

"Some of them are times, some of them are numbers," Phelps said smiling, declining to elaborate.

___

(c) 2009, The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.).

Visit the Register on the World Wide Web at http://www.ocregister.com/

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.