With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics supposed to have opened, Swimming World takes a look back at the “Call Me Maybe” video that dazzled ahead of the 2012 London Games.
“Hey, I just met you … and this is crazy … but here’s my number, so call me maybe”
“Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen is still a popular song, but for the swimming community, the song will always be tied to a video released by USA swimmers on the eve of the 2012 London Olympics that went viral.
Kathleen Hersey had seen other groups parody the song with a video and thought it would be fun for Team USA to try. Nearly everyone on the team participated in this fun, light, lip sync video of the song during training camp. But no one expected it to take off like it did.
Within 24 hours of being posted on YouTube by USA Swimming, the video had more than 1 million views and was the talk of the Olympic Village in London.
“That was so incredible,” Kathleen Hersey told Swimming World. “Russell Mark and I had this conversation after we showed the team the video the night before Opening Ceremonies. The room was beyond impressed with what Russell did with it, and we knew it was going to be a thing. But overnight, it got a million hits. There was a buzz about it in the Olympic village. We were hearing from the gymnastics team and the Australian swim team about it.”
All of that stemming from taking a chance on something fun.
“I initiated it, but Missy Franklin and I talked about it. Justin Bieber was fresh on the scene and Carly Rae Jepsen came out with this song and Justin and Selena made this video that was really goofy. She and I had seen the video and we thought it would be fun to do for our team. It would give everyone a peek into training camp and the team. It got legs from there,” Hersey said. “We got part way through filming clips of it, then it happened really fast.
“We got the groups together and once you have a couple people buy in, it took a life of its own.”
It started on the plane with Ariana Kukors and Michael Phelps setting the beat before the lyrics opened with a choreographed moment with Caitlin Leverenz, Rebecca Soni, Dana Vollmer and Andrew Gemmell.
A montage of fun moments involving Elizabeth Beisel, Cullen Jones, Jimmy Feigan, Anthony Ervin, Matt Grevers, Allison Schmitt, Alyssa Anderson and Jason Lezak follow, as well as Brendan Hansen’s underwater dancing, Eric Shanteau doing the sprinkler down a water slide and a kiss from Ryan Lochte.
But the most memorable part of the “Call Me Maybe” video is on the plane as a quartet of swimmers make an epic runway walk back to the camera, led by Missy Franklin, whose bubbly personality was being seen by many in the world for the first time in this video.
Franklin starts it with a huge hair flip and dance, leading to Hersey who points to the camera, shakes her hair and does a dance spin back into her seat, leading to Lauren Perdue, who is looking over her tipped-down sunglasses at the camera then plays with her long, curly hair while dancing her way to Natalie Coughlin, who sings and struts her way to the back of the plane with her huge smile showing, and her eyes selling every move.
Missy Franklin; Photo Courtesy: YouTube
“The airplane scene was Natalie’s brainchild,” Hersey said. “Eric Shanteau was the key person to win over. Once he had bought in, he got people excited. Jason Lezak did something, then everyone got excited. We started filming with our cameras we used for under water. It was just little snippets and they arranged some parts.”
Some swimmers were part of a couple-second choreography, but many just lip synced a line of the song, then didn’t think too much about it until the finished product was shown.
“I remember the staff put the video to the music and played it at a team meeting and we thought it was the coolest thing, more of a memory for us. But it got uploaded to YouTube and it ended up on ‘Good Morning America.’ We were in such a bubble in camp that we didn’t know how fast it spread,” Kara Lynn Joyce told Swimming World. “We were at training camp and a few of the girls were coming around with a go-pro or their cell cameras and play a short burst of the song for each person. I don’t know how they got it but they just about got everyone on the time on this.”
Then after “Good Morning America” everyone wanted to talk about “Call Me Maybe.”
“One of my favorite things about it was having everyone ask about it everywhere I went the following year,” Joyce said. “This was made a week before we were all racing. My biggest takeaway was how much fun Team USA was having. That was so important and was very evident for everyone to see.”
Caitlin Leverenz and Lauren Perdue. Photo Courtesy: YouTube
That fun is what brought an entire team together, a team used to competing against each other.
“My favorite part of swimming was the team part of swimming. The felt so much more cohesive in 2012 than it did in 2008,” Hersey said. “I think the video reflected that. It might have helped it but it definitely reflected how the team felt. I was in a weird place because my mom had just passed away, so I was a little more emotionally tuned in than I was before. We all had a good camaraderie going and had these key connections. It was a special team.”
The video still represents that team and has almost frozen that moment in time. People remember the video whether it be Missy’s hair flip or Cammile Adams and Chloe Sutton popping out from behind some cars in a parking lot, or Rachel Bootsma, Katie Ledecky and Shannon Vreeland dancing in a line, or Nathan Adrian writing “Call Me Maybe” on his hand or even a cheesy, eyelash-batting moment between Rebecca Soni and Ricky Berens comically broken up by Dana Vollmer.
Photo Courtesy: YouTube
The video fittingly ends with legendary coach Jon Urbanchek holding his phone.
Twelve years later, people still want to talk about it.
“People mention it to me in passing a lot,” said Hersey, a new mom. “It really takes me back. It feels like such a lifetime ago. I feel like I have had more life presence, but looking at it brought back so many memories. Some were sad and some were loaded because I spent a lot of time reflecting on my own swim experience.”
Photo Courtesy: Instagram/Kathleen Hersey
Hersey was aiming to win a medal in the 200 butterfly, but just missed her goal, finishing fourth. In 2008, she finished eighth.
“For me, the 2012 Olympics were so bittersweet for me for so many reasons,” she said. “I had this incredible moment and took the lead, but and didn’t have the finish I wanted to do.”
The video became the lasting memory from the team.
“It encompassed all that I love about swimming to this day,” Hersey said. “Michael said in an interview later that the team was special and kind of validated that. A real hero said something I was a part of what really good. That meant so much to me. Not having an Olympic medal, I take these experiences as what I take away from the Olympics.”
But this idea became Hersey’s gold medal. Millions of people remember it more vividly than who won the races in London — and people are still talking about “Call Me Maybe.”
Megan Flavin
This was the first summer my youngest competed in summer swim league meets and brings back so many memories. She went on to idolize Missy Franklin (wrote elementary school papers about her, dressed like her for school wax museum, etc.). She was 6 that summer and was totally inspired by the Olympics.
Still one of my favorites that every time the song is played I think of this video!
Deirdre Shepard
I JUST LOVED THIS TEAM … and watching this video again brought me joy and at the same time made me cry. This captured to true essence of the heart of that team. Swimmers are pretty special (I am a little biased). Watching this I also felt such grief as the 2020 Olympics should be having the opening ceremony tonight, but our entire world has been overwhelmed by the impact of cataclysmic change. So much has been lost and such much we will never get back.
❤️
This made me SMILE! We need more of this.
Russell Mark we need a video to get us out of the 2020 funk.
I still love this❣️ ??
This is to this day one of my all time favorite videos! It’s inspiring and uplifting. You can’t help but feel better after watching. Always brings a smile to your face!
Love this video and how close they all are.
Absolutely love it❤️
Swimmers ROCK
This makes me so happy!!!!
Always loved this video!
Darby Goodwin
Tracey Biddell we are doing this with Woden
Such a great video and memory!
Well that just made me smile big!!!