The Michael Andrew Experiment reaches a critical stage next week.

The kid who was the youngest American swimmer ever to turn pro will compete in his first Olympic Trials in Omaha. He reportedly will swim five events and is unlikely to make the U.S. team, but figures to have a puncher’s chance in the 100-meter breaststroke. Beyond that, this meet will serve as something of a referendum on how one of the most controversial parent-child relationships in American youth sports is going.

Andrew is 17 now, but he was 14 when he signed his first endorsement contract with a nutrition supplement manufacturer. There has been a lot of age-group records broken, a lot of media attention (by swimming standards) and a lot of arched eyebrows within the sport ever since.

Andrew is a very good swimmer with the potential for greatness. But is he getting great guidance and coaching within the bubble his parents have constructed around him?

View photos In this Aug. 9, 2015, photo, Michael Andrew, second from left, poses for a photo with his family. (AP) More

Peter Andrew is Michael’s father and coach. Michael is not a member of a real team – he trains in a two-lane pool Peter built at the family’s home in Lawrence, Kan. Tina Andrew is Michael’s mother and teacher. She home-schools Michael.

No teammates. No classmates. Turned pro two years younger than Michael Phelps – who was much more accomplished when he first got paid than Andrew was then or is today.

What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe nothing. But given some of the cautionary tales of other aggressively parent-coached young athletes – Todd Marinovich comes to mind – there are some concerned observers at the highest levels of the sport. Established coaches and swimming officials are wary of the Andrew plan, which seems fixated on short-term rewards (endorsements and age-group records) at the potential expense of long-term growth.

It’s tricky territory when outside observers appraise the parenting of someone they don’t know. Yet that sort of nosiness has become something of a national pastime: opinions ran rampant on the parents of the child who wound up in the gorilla enclosure in Cincinnati, and half of daytime TV programming seems to involve trotting out moms and dads who are raising kids in dubious fashion.

That a kid who is mostly a long shot to make the U.S. team is garnering so much attention speaks to the debate and second-guessing the Andrew family is generating. The criticisms range from micromanaging to the insular lifestyle to a short-sighted focus to training techniques.

Some firsthand experience with the family in its home environment would be helpful in understanding the methodology and philosophy, but it wasn’t easy to come by earlier this year.

At a meet in Austin in January, I asked Peter Andrew if I could visit the family in Lawrence and observe practice. He enthusiastically agreed, passed along his email address and requested that I get in touch with him shortly before the arranged date. (I was already going to be in town for the Kentucky-Kansas basketball game.) Multiple emails subsequently went unreturned.

For a family that has built up a secretive aura around Andrew’s training – called Ultra Short Race Pace Training, geared for light workloads and heavy on sprints – that did not shine any light on the situation.

Five months earlier, Andrew had competed in his biggest meet to date: the FINA World Junior Championships in Singapore as a member of the U.S. Junior National team. (Full disclosure: my daughter, Brooke, was on that team and swam in that meet with Andrew. For the record, she described him as very friendly.) He took on a schedule that went far beyond ambitious, trespassing into detrimental. Andrew swam eight individual events: the 50 freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly; the 100 breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly; and the 200 individual medley. He also was a member of two relays.

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