If Hollywood ever makes a movie about Michael Phelps, don't look for the latest Tinseltown heart throb to play the lead role. He just wouldn't fit the profile.

Phelps is an unassuming, average-looking guy with a long body and arms, short legs and big feet -- a combination made for swimming. He's hardly Hollywood handsome but he can swim: He just won a record eight gold medals in five individual and three team events in the Beijing Olympics.

What makes his accomplishments even more remarkable is the fact that Phelps raced 17 times over nine days.

How refreshing it is. At a time when major sports are routinely rocked by doping scandals and cheaters, Phelps appears to have actually earned his gold mine the hard way -- with lots of hard work and preparation and by being better than everyone else at what he does in an Olympic-size swimming pool.

And even at 23, the Baltimore Bullet is no johnny-come-lately.

Phelps has won 14 gold medals, the most of any Olympian ever. Eight of those were at the Beijing Olympics, which end Sunday. That broke American swimmer Mark Spitz's record of seven golds at the 1972 games in Munich for most won in a single Olympics. Behind Phelps, with nine golds total, are Spitz, U.S. track star Carl Lewis, Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi and Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina.

Prior to his success in Beijing, Phelps reportedly was already pulling in an estimated $5 million in endorsements, and sports marketing experts predict that now he will haul down more than $30 million in sponsorships. Everyone loves a (multiple) winner.

He'll make so much money, in fact, that he doesn't really have to worry about future security, which will give him time to pursue what he sees as a broader goal.

"I'm not in it for the money," Phelps said. "I swim because I love it, and I don't want it to be an every-four-year sport. I want to raise the profile of swimming," he said in a Miami (Fla.) Herald interview after his record-setting final event.

Well, if anyone can raise the profile, Phelps should be able to pull it off. He's planning on being back for the 2012 Olympic Games in London and it will be interesting to see what he could possibly do for an encore. Seven of the gold medal-winning events in which he participated were won in world-record time. He settled for a mere Olympic record in the 100-meter butterfly.

So, one more world record to go? Eight does seem to be a good number for this guy.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins, Bill Lee and Karen Troianello.