INDIANAPOLIS – After messing up Michael Phelps’ bid for eight gold medals at the world championships, Ian Crocker headed for a place that always gives him comfort.

The Big Easy.

He rented a car and headed off to New Orleans with two friends. Once there, he munched on alligator po’ boys, muffuletta sandwiches and beignets, appreciating the city in all its culinary glory. He made his annual pilgrimage to Jazz Fest, thrilled to see one of his favorite artists, Gillian Welch, perform live for the first time.

When it was done, Crocker would write later in his blog, he felt as though he had gone through a religious experience.

“You can get yourself in all sorts of trouble in New Orleans, and that’s fine and good for some people,” he said Tuesday, managing the slightest of smiles. “For me, it’s just the live music and the food and the people, just the energy of that city, especially the way it’s on the mend since Katrina.”

It’s an eclectic place for an eclectic soul, a welcome retreat for a world-class swimmer whose life is so much more than what he does at the pool.

Crocker, the former Cheverus High School of Portland star, is an avid music fan and guitar player, even recording his own songs. He also enjoys cooking, photography, long rides, blogging and just trying to find some meaning to it all.

“Ian and I are both left-handed, so we kind of understand each other,” his coach, Eddie Reese, quipped. “I give him enough rope, but not so that he can hang himself. He understands what he’s doing, he knows his purpose and he doesn’t let anything get in the way of it.”

For all his other interests, Crocker is mainly defined by what he does in the water. He’s won four Olympic medals and holds the world record in the 100-meter butterfly. He’s also endured plenty of bumps along the way.

Crocker wasn’t in top form at the 2004 Olympics and got edged in his signature event by Phelps, the star of Athens with six golds and eight medals overall. At this year’s world championships in Melbourne, Phelps bumped off Crocker again in the 100 fly on the way to winning seven golds.

But perhaps the most disappointing race of Crocker’s career came at the final day of worlds – April Fools’ Day.

After losing to Phelps in the fly, Crocker was relegated to swim in the morning preliminaries of the 400 medley relay, a mere formality for a powerful U.S. team that was an overwhelming favorite to capture gold in the evening.

Phelps was resting up to swim in the final, seemingly assured of leaving Melbourne with eight gold medals – one more than Mark Spitz captured at the 1972 Munich Olympics. But Phelps never got a chance to claim his own spot in history.

During the prelims, Crocker inexplicably dived into the water a split-second too early on an exchange, disqualifying the Americans.

It was a crushing blow to a swimmer who seems to take things far more seriously than most of his teammates. He watched glumly from the stands that evening, beating himself up for making such a silly mistake.

“It just felt like a kick in the shins,” said Crocker, who will swim two events at this week’s U.S. National Championships in Indianapolis. “It was a horrible experience to go through and to have to bring others through – the other guys on the morning team and, of course, the guys who were scheduled to swim at night.”

Especially Phelps.

“He was clearly disappointed because he had worked so hard all week,” Crocker said. “But we all just had to look at it as something that’s over, we have no control over it, there’s nothing we can do to change it, it is what it is. Let’s just go to work on the next one.”

Crocker took comfort in the response of those around him. Teammates. Coaches. Parents.

“I had a lot of people say a lot of very nice things that you don’t typically hear outside of extenuating circumstances like that. A lot of people were kind of saying how much they liked to have me around, not just for the swimming part but as a person,” he said.

“As bad an experience as it was, you’ve always got to look for the silver lining in things, especially in a large situation like that. I guess I found out some of my importance to others. That kind of pulled me through.”

So did the road trip to New Orleans, which allowed him to put Australia in his rearview mirror once and for all.

“Most people drain themselves when they’re in New Orleans,” Crocker said. “I just happen to get recharged.”

Now four months removed from his Melbourne blunder, he’s firmly focused on Beijing, where the 24-year-old Maine native – yep, he hails from a snow-covered state that didn’t even have a 50-meter pool – hopes to crown his career with his first individual Olympic gold.

Everything Crocker does over the next year will be geared toward producing his best performance in China. He’s done more butterfly training this summer and is eager to see if that helps his performance at nationals.

If all goes according to plan, he’ll head to China as the swimmer with the best chance of derailing Phelps’ renewed quest for eight golds, since Crocker holds five of the six fastest times ever in the 100 fly. If it doesn’t work out, he’ll surely find something to help him cope with the disappointment.

“The other activities in my life, they’re all sort of artistic things,” Crocker said. “I just enjoy doing them for the experience of doing, not necessarily for the huge result. It helps me put my swimming into perspective.”