Jordan, Tiger -- Phelps?

Olympic Golden Boy Says He Hopes To Do For Swimming What They Did For Their Sports

(CBS)  The world, and Americans in particular, watched with bated breath as Michael Phelps chased, then surpassed Mark Spitz' record of seven gold medals in one Olympics.

Phelps won eight in Beijing, equaling the number amassed there so far by entire nations as large as Russia and Japan, and beating Italy's total to date of six. Phelps also has 16 Olympic medals in all, 14 of them gold.

Now that he's overtaken Spitz, Phelps says he's setting his sights on an even loftier goal -- joining the likes of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, who single-handedly lifted their sports to new levels.

Phelps sat down with CBS News correspondent Jeff Glor in Beijing Tuesday, along with the man who's coached him since he was 11, Bob Bowman.

Phelps spoke later via satellite with co-anchor Harry Smith in New York, and three young swimmers from his old swim club in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Asked by Glor if he aspires to do for swimming what Jordan did for basketball and Woods for golf, Phelps said, "I hope so. ... Seeing those guys and seeing how they changed their sports, it makes me want to change the sport of swimming. And it makes me want to get the sport to a new level that it hasn't seen before."

When Smith remarked about all the mega-name athletes and others who watched his events from the stands in Beijing, Phelps replied, "We saw people from LeBron (James) to Kobe (Bryant) ... to President Bush, to Bill Gates -- we saw, literally, so many people who were in the stands cheering us on, and I think this sport really is starting to take off, and it's just an honor to be a part of it, and help this sport grow, and attract new faces to it."

Glor observed to Phelps, "You had said before that you had written down a list of goals that you wanted to accomplish at these Games that you weren't going to tell anyone, except Bob. What were they?"

"Everything we've accomplished," was Phelps' answer.

What's next?

Three months off.

Down the road, say, at the Games in London in 2012, Phelps told Glor, "I just want to try new events, be able to swim some events that I've wanted to swim and I haven't been able to, because of the program, because of the schedule."

"What would a world record in the breaststroke be for Michael Phelps, Glor wanted to know.

"That's the question I've gotten so many times, 'Are you gonna swim breaststroke now? Are you going to break a record?' " Phelps answered.

Bowman, laughing, chimed in, "I think the breaststrokers are still safe. The backstrokers, I'm not so sure."

"Breaststrokers and the distance swimmers are safe," Phelps chuckled. "I'm not doing either one of those."

Phelps is a huge football fan and says he can't wait to start seeing Baltimore Ravens games when he comes back home.

Phelps says all that's happened to him in Beijing still hasn't sunk in.

The un-cut version of Glor's interview:



Harry Smith's interview: