Golden Shadow

Mark Spitz was a ‘70s icon, and if you remember much about that decade’s pop culture, he was one of the decade’s two poster children. The other was Farrah Fawcett. Both were clad in swimsuits, only Spitz accessorized his with seven gold medals.

It was about the hair too.

She had the hair. He had the hair, and the well-coifed mustache. His poster remains the best-selling Olympic keepsake. Bruce and Mary Lou, get in line.

“I can’t think of any athlete in any sport 30 years after their prime who is still the No. 1 in their sport,” said John Naber, who won four gold medals and a silver in the 1976 Olympics. “If you went up to 100 strangers in a supermarket, and asked about an Olympic swimmer, 99% of them will name Mark Spitz, if not 100.

“Joe Montana’s name will not come up 99%. [Michael] Jordan, give him another 10 years. Tiger Woods, in 30 years, will not be the name on everyone’s mouth. Mark Spitz is the ultimate name in swimming.

“Everybody loves the number seven.”

Former USC coach, Peter Daland, who was the men’s coach of the Olympic team in 1972, is 81 years old, but is still clocking times and walking the pool deck, coaching a Masters team in Thousand Oaks.

“It’s going to take a lot to beat it,” he said. “Don’t expect it to happen, not in my life and not in yours.”

How his seven gold medals compare to the list of other perhaps unassailable records--Joe DiMaggio’s 56-consecutive game hitting streak, Wayne Gretzky’s goals and points records, or Jack Nicklaus’ number of victories in majors--is not something Spitz really considers a pertinent comparison.

Daland, for one, thought that setting world records in all seven races was a much more significant accomplishment.

“My success as an athlete was not in an event,” Spitz said. “The DiMaggios, the Williamses, the Tiger Woods and Babe Ruths, it’s a journey through your sports life. The last five, six years of my sports career was my journey. You don’t get recognized for that journey.

“The last 11 races I ever swam, I had 11 world records. That’s part of that journey.”

His accomplishments--gold medals in three relays and four individual races, all world records, in 1972 at Munich, Germany--cast a shadow on his envious rivals and jealous teammates, often the same people. Even years later, his aura seemed to do the same to those poor new kids in the blocks.

One was Matt Biondi, who, by no fault of his own, became the first big male American name in swimming after Spitz when he competed at the 1988 Olympics.

Spitz wasn’t swimming at Seoul, but his long shadow was there. Even though Biondi was three Olympics removed from the event, he vividly recalled the pressure during a conversation at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Biondi, a friend and hundreds of others were packed into a train compartment--like being jammed into a Speedo--on the way from Darling Harbor to Homebush Bay, going to the last day of the swim meet. He started talking on the train about the over-the-top expectations in 1988.

Hours after winning a bronze, Biondi watched television and learned from the commentator at about the same time as the rest of the world, that he was a failure for having finished third in the 200-meter freestyle. The words “failed” and “settle” became chiseled in his memory, and he was willing to tell a reporter, very nicely, how much the moment hurt him.

Never mind the fact he eventually won five gold medals. The pride-wounding culprit was NBC, which pointed out that he would not have a chance to win seven. There was the shadowy, elusive opponent he, nor anyone else, could ever beat.

“Mark was sort of my nemesis,” Biondi says.

The idol understood.

“He [Biondi] was the first person to really have that kind of comparison pressure,” Spitz said, rattling off Biondi’s results, noting that he lost the 100-meter butterfly in Seoul by a hundredth of a second.

“Stuff can happen. I never had that. I never had to compare myself with somebody else.”

Spitz is compared to no one else but himself. His legacy was so tough, he couldn’t even compete against it when he resurfaced in a highly publicized comeback for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. He did not qualify and is now a Los Angeles-area entrepreneur.

His career data is fascinating. All of his international and national competitions were analyzed during the Sydney Olympics. Just counting the finals, he said he swam in about 75 races, and recorded 35 world records.

Spitz is proud of that batting average, but don’t get him started on baseball.

“My sport is not recognized from the statistical point as baseball is looked at. They’ve got some crazy statistics,” he said. “It would be like saying I was on world-record pace through three laps of four. Who gives a damn?

“To me, that’s just bogus. I almost want to throw up when I hear statistics like that. Is that what you have to do while you’re waiting around for three hours, talking to people about stuff like that? Think about it: Mark Spitz was on world-record pace 3,900 times through two thirds of most of his races.

“But it wasn’t to be!”

All joking aside, his lasting Munich fame almost didn’t happen. His last individual race was the 100 freestyle, and Spitz had valid concerns about his U.S. teammate Jerry Heidenreich, who went faster than Spitz in his 100 split in the earlier 400 freestyle relay.

Already, Spitz had five gold medals and the last event was practically a foregone conclusion, the 400 medley relay. For him, a clean sheet, six gold medals in six races, sounded a lot better than six gold medals and one silver in seven races.

He seriously thought about skipping the final of the 100 freestyle. His longtime mentor, Sherm Chavoor, coach of the U.S. women’s team, got in his face, giving him a dose of straight talk.

“He [Chavoor] kept saying, ‘You’d be chicken if you don’t swim that event,’ ” Spitz said. “The 100 free is the premier fast event. If somebody wins the 100 free, they’ll be known as the fastest swimmer in the world. It wouldn’t have mattered if you won 17 gold medals. He said, ‘The guy that wins that is the fastest swimmer, undisputed, plus the fact you’re the world record holder, so what are you doing?’ ”

Spitz did it, winning in 51.22 seconds, another world record. Heidenreich was second in 51.65 and the bronze medalist was Vladimir Bure, the father of hockey star Pavel Bure.

“You don’t become great unless you can beat somebody,” Spitz said. “If you only had one person out there in an eight-lane pool winning a gold medal, it would be relatively meaningless. Somebody like a Jerry Heidenreich who I competed against was a very motivating factor, and so was Gary Hall [Sr.]. I had to beat these people.”

Spitz acknowledged the importance of his psychological edge in his swimming days. He had three legendary coaches, Chavoor, George Haines at the famous Santa Clara Swim Club and Doc Counsilman at Indiana University. The early psychological architect was Arnold Spitz, who commuted 80 miles to work each day so his son could train at Santa Clara.

Arnold apparently was good at removing obstacles. The family rabbi was told, “Even God likes a winner,” when training conflicted with religious lessons.

According to a Mark Spitz’s Web site, the father and son would routinely have this dialogue:

Arnold: “How many lanes are there in a swimming pool?”

Mark: “Six.”

Arnold: “And how many of these lanes win?”

Mark: “One!”

Spitz carried over the theme of self-belief to the current superstar of swimming, 19-year-old Ian Thorpe of Australia. Thorpe, who won three Olympic gold medals in Sydney and has set 17 individual world records, has spawned talk of chasing Spitz’s mark of seven gold in one Olympic Games.

Thorpe won six gold medals this summer at a lesser international competition, the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, and added a silver in the 100 backstroke. It was the first time he competed in that race in about four years.

“One of the things that adds to Ian’s strengths is the same thing that helped me,” Spitz said. “The longer your career lasts, the more times you can continue to beat your competition. The more I’m convinced the more they compete against somebody like Ian, they’re arguing among themselves who’s going to be first to get second.

“There’s this subliminal thing going on. You can’t possibly believe your coach: ‘This is going to be the day you’re going to beat Ian Thorpe.’ ‘I haven’t done it, coach, in the last 17 times I competed against him. Why today is this going to be any different?’ ”

Spitz first met Thorpe at the 1999 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships and the youngster quizzed him at great length about his pre-race routine and preparations during the 1972 Olympics.

Earlier, the legend was suitably impressed before they met. The first time he spotted Thorpe in the water was at the 1998 World Championships in Perth, Australia. During the race, Spitz turned to the man sitting next to him and predicted Thorpe would win.

“I said, ‘He looked up to find out where the guy was so he could pass him. He did a Mark Sptiz maneuver.’ And of course the guy went on to do exactly that.”

Thorpe has repeatedly said that he feels Spitz record won’t ever be broken. Nevertheless, as Thorpe evolved, it will be fascinating watching his quest at Athens in 2004 and, possibly, Beijing in 2008.

Spitz was almost like a machine that could not be beaten. The world records were fleeting, as was the acting career in TV and movies, but the seven gold medals have endured for the last 30 years. Though he feels Thorpe may be the one to do it, others aren’t so sure.

“None of them [the world records] lasted longer than five years,” Naber said. “What he did physically was that remarkable, over and over and over again.

“It’s like rolling craps in Las Vegas. He rolled craps seven times in a row. It’s pretty easy to roll the second, the third impressive. Four, gather a crowd. Fifth, the whole casino is watching. Six in a row, stop the printing press and watch you throw the seventh.”